“I, wisdom, share a home with shrewdness and have knowledge and discretion. To fear the Lord is to hate evil. I hate arrogant pride, evil conduct, and perverse speech. I possess good advice and sound wisdom; I have understanding and strength. It is by me that kings reign and rulers enact just law; by me, princes lead, as do nobles and all righteous judges. I love those who love me, and those who search for me find me.” (Proverbs‬ ‭8‬:‭12‬-‭17‬ ‭CSB – Read the chapter) ‬‬

One of the ways businesses try to increase their bottom line is by selling things in sets. Product B is good, but it really only works at its maximum potential if you also have Product A with it. Of course, if you purchase Product A, Products C, D, and E will also work better. Product A is the thing that ties them all together and completes the set. Wisdom and its fruits are like that. The fruits are all good, but if you try to acquire them independently of wisdom, they won’t work as well. Let’s talk about this as Solomon tells us about some of wisdom’s accompaniments.

I have long been a sets guy. If something comes as a set, I want the whole thing. This applies to stuff I get for myself as well as stuff I get for other people, especially my kids. I remember getting them a line of video games toys one time when they were deeply discounted as they were getting phased out. I couldn’t begin to afford them when they were new, but now that they were 90% off, I was in.

The game had a really cool concept, it just never caught on. You bought the game which acted like a kind of digital sandbox. Then, you had to buy all the toys to play with in the sandbox. It was a bit of a racket, but an effective one. And a pretty cool one. We bought the base game, and then because they were so cheap, we bought all the rest of the accoutrements as well. Gotta catch them all, yes? It’s probably good I never started playing Pokémon Go.

Wisdom and its accompaniments come as a set like this. The nice thing about wisdom is that the bonus items are all free. It’s a package deal for one low price. When you go in for wisdom—really go in and not just pretend to go in—you get all the things that come with it. You don’t necessarily get them all right away. They’re like achievement rewards that you slowly but surely acquire over time as you grow in wisdom. But if you truly commit to this path of growth, they will eventually make themselves known in your life in ways that both you and others around you who know you well will notice.

As Solomon continues wisdom’s call for us to receive it and delight in all of its benefits, he tells us what several of these bonus items are. “I, wisdom, share a home with shrewdness and have knowledge and discretion.” Shrewdness is an interesting character trait. The word sounds like a bad thing. It certainly doesn’t sound like a biblical virtue. A better way to characterize it might be street-smarts. Someone who is shrewd understands how to navigate the ins and outs of a culture or even just a situation in a way that steers things to his most desired end. He knows how to convince people to see things his way. He understands how to earn favors and when to cash in those favors to advance his goals.

The idea of knowledge is pretty clear and familiar to us. Discretion is about knowing just how to respond to a particular situation. It is more about knowing what not to do and when not to do something than anything else. Someone with a great amount of discretion will be able to help you deal with something or navigate through a tricky situation without making a scene or having things fall apart on you.

When we pursue wisdom in our lives, it will bring several things into our lives, but it will also help to drive some things out of our lives. Wisdom is closely associated with righteousness, and righteousness has no toleration for evil. Accordingly, “to fear the Lord is to hate evil. I hate arrogant pride, evil conduct, and perverse speech.” People who are prideful are not wise. They do not recognize and accept who God is and who they are in light of that. And because they don’t recognize who God is, they don’t fear Him. Well, when someone doesn’t fear the Lord, he is going to be far more comfortable with evil and perversity—with things that violate and offend God’s character generally—than the person who does. The more we grow in wisdom, the more we will come to hate those things and purge them from our lives.

With wisdom we will always know where to go and what to do. We will recognize in each situation we face the best way forward. “I possess good advice and sound wisdom; I have understanding and strength.” Wisdom brings to our lives not only an awareness of the best path forward in a given set of circumstances, but the strength and courage necessary to take that path in spite of the obstacles that loom large along the way.

Another of the bonus items wisdom brings that we could use a lot more of in our culture and world is better leadership. “It is by me that kings reign and rulers enact just law; by me, princes lead, as do nobles and all righteous judges.” When those in positions of authority lead with wisdom, they lead better than they do without. Wisdom helps them see not only the direction they should be taking their people, but how to lead them in that direction without needlessly trampling on anyone along the way. It keeps them firmly in line with the justice of God.

And the thing about all of this is that these benefits from wisdom aren’t things we have to do without. As we have talked about over and over on this journey already, wisdom is not something that’s hard to find. Once we find it, it’s not hard to obtain. “I love those who love me, and those who search for me find me.” If you want the set here, you only need to get the foundation piece. And you can afford the foundation piece, which means you have no excuse for not enjoying all the benefits of the rest of the collection.

But—and this is important—without the foundation, you aren’t going to be able to enjoy the rest of the collection. You can try, but you will fail. Leadership and authority without wisdom just become one form or another of tyranny. People in positions of power who don’t operate with wisdom lead in directions that bring harm to all those who follow them. Strength without wisdom generally makes someone a bully. Opposing evil without wisdom leads to pharisaism or terrorism. Shrewdness without wisdom makes someone a manipulative snake.

Wisdom is the thing that holds all these others together. It creates the platform from which they can become the fullest and best versions of themselves. If you get the one, you get the rest along the way. If you reject the one, the rest will profit you nothing and will be more likely to cost you a great deal in the end. So go all in for wisdom. You’ll be glad that you did.