I. It is in the active service of life, in the work of the marketplace, in the interchange of thought and the collision of minds differently constituted, that wisdom speaks to us. She comes as with an evangel, which she proclaims to all, which shuts out none but those who shut it out, seeking in her infinite compassion the ignorant and the foolish.
II. Wisdom yearns, as it were, for human sympathy, and the wide spaces of the universe would seem dark and cold to her if man were not there. She "rejoices in the inhabited parts of the earth; "her" delights are with the sons of men."
III. Wisdom and the Eternal Word are one. Christ, who is made unto us sanctification and redemption, is also made unto us Wisdom. This truth suggests counsels, warnings, hopes, encouragements. (1) To many among us who make it their work to be observers of the facts and students of the laws of nature, the truth which is thus revealed gives a new ground for thankfulness and hope. The place whereon they stand is holy ground. All traces of design, order, development, the unfolding of the higher from the lower, what are these but marks of the Eternal Wisdom manifesting Itself according to Its own determinate counsel and foreknowledge? (3) But it must not be forgotten that the Eternal Word reveals Himself as One whose delights are with the sons of men. It is an evil and hateful thing in His sight when truth is divorced from love; when the dreamer, or the theorist, or the observer, lives in his own lordly pleasure-house of knowledge or of beauty, and shuts out all sympathy with human suffering and human weakness. (3) The identity of the Wisdom of the Book of Proverbs with the Word made flesh tells us of yet another path to win that treasure which is far above rubies via crucis, via lucis. The path that leads to light and truth and wisdom is no path of pleasantness and ease. "The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord." Those who follow Him as witnesses to the truth may well be contented to bear His reproach.
E. H. Plumptre, Theology and Life,p. 161.
References: Proverbs 8:31. J. Keble, Sermons from Christmas to Epiphany,p. 127. Proverbs 8:32. J. Wells, Thursday Penny Pulpit,vol. xv., p. 41.