(Proverbs 2:10-11) . . .When wisdom enters into your heart and knowledge itself becomes pleasant to your very soul, 11 thinking ability itself will keep guard over you, discernment itself will safeguard you,. . .

The heart is the figurative seat of desire and motivation, so when wisdom enters into your heart and knowledge becomes pleasant to you, it means that a person  desires wisdom and knowledge. This constitutes the use of ones thinking ability.

What is the wisdom that is being referred to?

(1 Corinthians 3:18-20) 18 Let no one be seducing himself: If anyone among YOU thinks he is wise in this system of things, let him become a fool, that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God; for it is written: “He catches the wise in their own cunning.” 20 And again: “Jehovah knows that the reasonings of the wise men are futile.. . .

Of course the knowledge referred to is not just about casual subjects but about serious matters. Notice how the Bible recommends the use of our thinking abilities. Does this sound like the popular religious view of “we must just have faith.” The popular worldly view of religion is that faith does not need evidence but involves trust and faith without evidence. Compare the Bible’s reference to faith

(Hebrews 11:1) . . .Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld.

When the above scripture is examined and thought upon what is the lesson learned?
Faith should be based on an assured expectation of things hoped for.
What does this mean? We entertain hope in the promises that God has made for the future, but this hope is based on an assured expectation. Why? Because we have the visible evidence in the universe of a creator’s existence. God  is the reality that the evidence points to, although we cannot see him.  That is why we can have faith that the orderly organized structure of the universe was put in order by God’s command. That is why we discern that the reality of God and the creation that we cannot see, are evidently demonstrated to exist by the visible evidence.

(Hebrews 11:3) . . .By faith we perceive that the systems of things were put in order by God’s word, so that what is beheld has come to be out of things that do not appear.

This  scripture can also understood by its application to the invisible structure of the universe. Professor Einstein showed that matter and energy are interchangeable. So the atomic structure has been formed by an input of energy. Reinforcing this idea, the bible shows that God is the source of the energy that produces the matter.

(Hebrews 3:4) . . .Of course, every house is constructed by someone, but he that constructed all things is God.

(Isaiah 40:26) . . .“Raise YOUR eyes high up and see. Who has created these things? It is the One who is bringing forth the army of them even by number, all of whom he calls even by name. Due to the abundance of dynamic energy, he also being vigorous in power, not one [of them] is missing. . .

This is thinking ability in action and not a blind belief. Let us examine what the Bible has to say about how we should use our thinking ability.

(Proverbs 2:6-9) . . .Jehovah himself gives wisdom; out of his mouth there are knowledge and discernment. 7 And for the upright ones he will treasure up practical wisdom; for those walking in integrity he is a shield, 8 by observing the paths of judgment, and he will guard the very way of his loyal ones. 9 In that case you will understand righteousness and judgment and uprightness, the entire course of what is good.

(Proverbs 4:5-9) . . .Acquire wisdom, acquire understanding. Do not forget, and do not turn aside from the sayings of my mouth. 6 Do not leave it, and it will keep you. Love it, and it will safeguard you. 7 Wisdom is the prime thing. Acquire wisdom; and with all that you acquire, acquire understanding. 8 Highly esteem it, and it will exalt you. It will glorify you because you embrace it. 9 To your head it will give a wreath of charm; a crown of beauty it will bestow upon you.”

In the foregoing scriptures four things are mentioned in addition to thinking ability that we need to acquire wisdom. Thinking ability means that we have to use our brains and meditate on what we know

1. Accurate knowledge We need to take in knowledge that is accurate.
2. Understanding. We meditate on our knowledge, so as to comprehend the significance of the information in its relation to us. If our knowledge is inaccurate then our understanding will be faulty and affect our discernment.
3. Discernment. We need to use our thinking ability to discern what course of action we need to take to benefit ourselves.
4. Wisdom. If we act on what we have discerned then we are wise and acting with wisdom.

• Let us illustrate the application of these four factors.

Imagine that you find yourself on a vast area like the Karroo in South Africa. You are sitting on a railway line eating your lunch. Suddenly you feel the line vibrating and you hear a locomotive whistle afar off and see smoke on the distant horizon. You have knowledge.

You put this information logically together. A train is coming toward you. You can feel the lines vibrating and the evidence points toward that fact. You are sitting on the line. If you are there when the train arrives there will be a collision and this could cost you your life. You now have understanding.

How does this affect you? You estimate that it will be here in the next ten minutes and so to avoid the accident you need to move off the line. You now have discernment.

You pack up you gear and move off the line completely out of harm’s way. You have demonstrated wisdom.

Thinking Ability is a gift from God to help us to arrive at accurate conclusions. Its purpose is to arrive at the truth of a matter. However it must be based on accurate knowledge

When one reads the Bible counsel are we aware that this was written about 2500 years ago. Can you find fault with this process? Does this process seem to be out of date for our time? Have we advanced so far, that this information is out of date? I have found that our modern world is inclined to conclude that there is no such thing as truth. And that everything depends on how clever one’s argument is. However that is not why God gave us thinking ability.

lets look at some up to date modern scientific knowledge.
Have you ever heard of the Doppler effect?
If a train is approaching toward you and blows its whistle as it approaches, the pitch of the whistle rises and as the train goes past you and goes away from you, the pitch of the whistle falls.  Why is this? This is called the the Doppler effect. We also have information on the behavior of sound.

As the whistle blows the sound emanates from the source in waves. These waves are expressed as cycle per second, meaning the number of waves per second. That is why when you purchase a High Fidelity sound system, the fidelity is expressed in cps. For example: 20,000 cps to 78 cps. The 20,000 cps expresses the high sounds and the 78 cps expresses the low sounds. This is part of the knowledge that we have. How does all this knowledge affect our understanding of the situation?

Because the train is coming toward you the sound waves that it generates are squashed between you and the train and the cps increases at the point where you are. This raises the pitch. When the train passes you, the waves are stretched out, the cps becomes less and so the pitch of the whistle falls.  By meditating on our knowledge we have acquired an understanding of the situation

Now since the use of the Hubble telescope this same effect has been observed to occur with ultra violet light. Astronomers have discovered that when the light from the stars and galaxies are passed through a prism, the spectrum appears. The colors of the spectrum are similar to the rainbow because the raindrops behave like prisms and this breaks up the white light into the colors of the spectrum. The different colors represent the different frequencies that make up ultraviolet light. If the source of the light is approaching, the colors in the spectrum crowd up to the blue end, and if the source of the light is moving away from you, the colors tend to move to the red end. This is the Doppler effect principle.

When examining the light that emanates from the galaxies, it has been found that the lines in the spectrum are all crowding to the red end. This is an indication that the galaxies are all moving way from us.  This is an indication that the universe is expanding. The implication from a scientific point of view is very important because it points to the creation of the universe. In what way?

There appear to be only two conclusions for these phenomena. Either the earth is the center of the universe, which we know that it is not, or the universe is expanding.  If the universe is expanding and stars are visible in the sky then this proves that the universe had a beginning. Why is that? consider this illustration.

If you paint a balloon and then blow it up, the particles of paint will all move away from one another. if the balloon is blown up to infinity, all the particles of paint will have moved completely out of sight of each other. Because we can still see the stars in the sky, it means that the universe has not been around long enough for this to have occurred.

If this process is recorded on film and the film played backwards, we will arrive at a point in time where all the matter in the universe decreased to a dot and then disappeared.
As nothing can create nothing it becomes obvious that the universe had to be created. According to the scientific evidence available, the creator must exist outside the universe itself and therefore be invisible to our eyes.

Is this not exactly what the Bible has taught us according to the foregoing scriptures? “the reality of an invisible God’s existence was demonstrated by the evidence that the universe had  a beginning”.
When the Bible says in Genesis chapter 1 that “in the beginning God created the heavens and earth.” Is this not completely in harmony with scientific facts?

With this more accurate understanding of how the universe operates, we discern that the universe had a beginning and that it must have been created.We also discern that we cannot have accurate knowledge of the universe, if we discount the existence of a creator and his purpose.

We are wise if what we have learned leads us to conclude that because we have been created by God, we have an obligation to fulfill his purpose for us just as all other forms of life, fulfill the assigned purpose for which they were created.  We cannot do just as we please or else chaos will result. The state of the world indicates that the majority of the worlds inhabitants are not fulfilling the purpose for which they were created.

Now compare this accurate information with the world’s thinking. Most scientists are evolutionists who do not believe in a creator. The popular media assign greater credibility to these men, hence the usual claim of evolutionary literature that all “reputable scientists are evolutionists”.

When we apply the Scriptural formula for the use of thinking ability to these men this is the valid conclusion.
1    Their knowledge is inaccurate because they are ignoring the evidence of a creator.
2    Therefore there understanding must be inaccurate because it is s based on inaccurate information
3.   This must affect their discernment because of not fully understanding the situation.
4.   Their wisdom is foolish to God because it is based on inaccurate information.

Surely this is an example of worldly wisdom that is foolish to God.

(1 Corinthians 1:20) . . .Where is the wise man? Where the scribe? Where the debater of this system of things? Did not God make the wisdom of the world foolish?

(Psalm 14:1) . . .The senseless one has said in his heart: “There is no Jehovah.”

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