“Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future.”
[Proverbs 19:20, ESV]
The book of Proverbs is not only the greatest book for learning how to live life as we are called to live, it is the greatest book for learning about how to live, in the shortest amount of time. The Proverbs are concise, powerful, and can easily change one’s thinking for the rest of his life. I love this proverb, and I pray that, by the end of this essay, you come to love it as much as I do.
I believe that it is our duty as Christians to pursue knowledge, to grow in wisdom, to be better today than we were yesterday, and to prepare ourselves to be even better tomorrow than we are today. Do not take my word for it, read what the Bible tells us about the pursuit of knowledge:
“An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.”
[Proverbs 18:15, ESV]
I did not expect to quote Proverbs 18:15 in this essay, but I am very glad that I did, since it ties in perfectly with the meaning of Proverbs 19:20. Proverbs 18:15 tells us that an intelligent heart will acquire knowledge, and that “intelligent heart” should be in all of us. If you are a genius, you should be seeking out more knowledge than anybody (and you should contact me and give me some advice on how to be more like you). If you are not a genius, you are in good company. If you are not a genius, seek as much knowledge as you can. The goal of living as a Christian should be to be the best steward that you can be, of all the gifts that God has blessed you with. When I was a child, I was told by my grandmother that, for me to not live up to my potential would be “a sin”, and I agree with her, wholeheartedly. If you have been blessed with the ability to study, you should study as much as you can, and do it for the glory of God. If you are gifted with the ability to knit, you should knit as well as you can, and knit for the glory of God. If you have been gifted with the ability to make music, make music for the glory of God. This calling applies to everybody, regardless of the abilities God has given to them, the level of ability, or where they are in life. If you exist, you have a purpose. If you have a purpose, you should strive to serve according to that purpose. Do not let a moment pass without seeking to do the will of God, to the best of the abilities that He has blessed you with. The “intelligent heart” is not necessarily the heart of somebody who is intelligent, it is the heart of somebody who pursues intelligence.
The second half of Proverbs 18:15 connects to Proverbs 19:20. We must seek knowledge if we are to be wise, and we should all seek to be wise. How do we gain wisdom, gain knowledge, and be good stewards of what God has blessed us with? Why, by listening to advice, of course!
The first half of Proverbs 19:20 tells us to listen to advice, and to accept instruction. Listening to advice is the easy part. Unless you are Adam (which you certainly are not), you were a child. If you were a child, you were given advice, and a lot of that advice was not advice you asked for, nor was it advice that you really wanted to hear. If one raises his voice, others are forced to listen to him, but they are not forced to do anything with it. This leads us to the second aspect of the first half of Proverbs 19:20: accepting instruction.
When applied as a single command, the first half of Proverbs 19:20 is clear, powerful, and life-changing. We are to listen to advice, and we are to accept instruction. Not only do we need to listen to the advice, we need to do something with it. What good would it be to spend your life, building a home for yourself, getting it all nice and decorated, then setting it ablaze and raising the thing to the ground? What good would it do for you to listen to the advice of men and women, far wiser than you, but never actually do anything with that advice?
Okay, so you listen to advice, you accept instruction, but then what? Do you gain wisdom, immediately? Perhaps, but that is not what Proverbs 19:20 tells us to expect. The result of listening to advice and accepting instruction is that we gain wisdom in the future. This is not some quirk of the English Standard Version (ESV), it is the same message that is found in every major translation:
“...so you will be wise the rest of your life.” [New International Version]
“...that you may be wise the rest of your days.” [Berean Standard Bible]
“...that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end.” [King James Bible]
“...That you may be wise in the time to come.” [Amplified Bible]
It is clear, then, that by listening to advice and accepting instruction today, we ensure that we will be wise in the future. I believe that listening to advice is something that we need to do as a part of living our lives, rather than something we do sometimes.
Of course, we do not need to listen to the advice of everybody, but if you are being given advice by those unfit to provide it, you have another issue to address (see Proverbs 13:20). There is wisdom in discerning whom you choose to listen to, but that is another subject.
I will end this essay with an experience that I had somewhat recently. I had been trying to figure out how to do something with a woodworking project that I was showing to some children in my neighborhood, and I could not figure out how to deal with a nut that had been stuck on a threaded rod. I am always working on something, whether it is woodworking, blacksmithing, some kind of computer, circuitry, chemistry, or anything else that I am studying at the moment, and I am always working out of the garage. It is very hot and humid in Missouri, so I have to keep my garage door open. Given how often I am working on something, how often that thing changes, and how weird some of my projects are, I have a knack for getting people to wonder what I am doing, and why I am doing it. I do not try to get attention, I just happen to get it. What would you do if your neighbor was up at midnight, testing out a high-voltage transformer, tinkering with some kind of obscure electrical component, or sanding a large wooden monstrosity (it is a planter that I am making for my mother, I swear)?
Well, I just so happened to attract the attention of a few of the neighbors, and one of them was a young man who, while I was trying to figure out how to fix this issue with my project, asked me, “Why don’t you just cut it off?”
“Honestly, you have a point.”, I replied.
In a couple of minutes, the issue that had been giving me so much frustration had been fixed, all because of one young man.
I could have ignored him, or downplayed how helpful he was, but I cannot deprive the young man of the credit that he deserves for his brilliance. It was something that I could have thought of, I suppose, but I had not thought of it. The reality is that I would have taken a lot longer to think of just cutting the nut off of the threaded rod, and it would only have come to mind after I had spent a while trying a bunch of other ideas.
This is just one of countless examples where I was really blessed by the wisdom of another person, and I am blessed to have had an opportunity to remind the young man of how smart he is, how helpful he is, and how his idea saved me so much of my time. Wisdom is valuable, regardless of its source, and we should use any opportunity that God gives us to learn and grow.
I pray that you were blessed by the passage we studied, and I pray that your life has been transformed by the power of the Word of God.
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