Search this study guide
Scripture focus
Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.
Proverbs 4:7 KJV
At a glance
Does growing in wisdom mean gaining insight into what God is doing behind the scenes of our lives?
No, Packer insists — that is the most common misunderstanding of wisdom. Real wisdom, drawn especially from Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, is the reverent skill of responding rightly to whatever comes, not a privileged view of God's hidden purposes.
Summary of the chapter
Packer sets human wisdom within the larger frame of God's attributes, distinguishing those that belong to God alone (his self-existence, unchangeableness, and freedom from the limits of time and space) from those he shares with human beings made in his image, wisdom among them. Because of the Fall, that shared capacity for wisdom is damaged, but it is renewed in believers through their union with Christ.
Turning to Proverbs, he identifies the starting point of wisdom as reverence for God — 'the fear of the LORD' — paired with sustained attention to God's own Word, rather than clever calculation or life experience alone. He then confronts a widespread misconception: that wisdom grants insight into why particular things are happening, a kind of behind-the-scenes access to God's plans.
Ecclesiastes, Packer argues, exists precisely to correct that misconception, teaching believers to live faithfully within life's genuine unpredictability rather than demanding an explanation for it. True wisdom, on this reading, is not explanatory but practical — fearing God, keeping his commands, and doing today's task well without insisting on knowing tomorrow's reasons.
Key points
- Some of God's attributes are his alone; others, wisdom included, are shared with humanity as his image-bearers, though marred by the Fall.
- Wisdom is renewed and restored in believers through union with Christ.
- Reverence for God and attentiveness to his Word are the Bible's consistent starting points for wisdom, not cleverness or experience.
- A common error treats wisdom as insight into God's hidden purposes; Scripture never promises that kind of access.
- Ecclesiastes models the alternative: living faithfully and realistically within uncertainty, rather than demanding explanations providence does not owe us.
A line worth remembering
Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom.
J. I. Packer Knowing God, ch. 10
Related Scripture
- Proverbs 9:10
- Proverbs 1:7
- Ecclesiastes 8:16-17
- Colossians 3:10
For reflection and discussion
- Where have you, perhaps without noticing, expected wisdom to explain God's purposes rather than simply guide your response to them?
- What would it look like this week to pursue reverence for God as the actual starting point of wisdom?
- How does Ecclesiastes' honesty about life's unpredictability change how you handle unanswered 'why' questions?
These notes are an original UECF.NET study companion and are not a reproduction of the book. Read the full chapter — chapter 10, “God's Wisdom and Ours” — in Knowing God by J. I. Packer (InterVarsity Press / Hodder & Stoughton, 1973).