Church News Volume 2, Issue 1

Dear friends,

King Solomon was a wise king, in fact the Bible tells us he was the wisest king who ever lived. Like Dr Doolittle he talked to the animals, he could charm a lion from its den, a tiger from its lair and the birds from the trees. He could do the same with human beings - most famously the Queen of Sheba. We can read all about Solomon in the Old Testament first book of Kings.

Solomon is praised in the Bible above all else for his wisdom.

Being wise is not the same as being clever. There are plenty of clever people around who are far from being wise. Cleverness is knowing about things: wisdom is being able to discern the true values of life. As Tennyson once wrote, "Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers."

Maybe many of us have known clever, well educated people and yet because they lack wisdom - commonsense if you like - these clever people have made the most awful mess of their own lives and the lives of others.

Our political world, the workplace, the financial world, even the religious world, all suffer from people who are just a bit too clever and who lack vision. "Wisdom is oftentimes nearer when we stoop than when we soar." (William Wordsworth)

Solomon prayed for the wisdom to discern the true value of things - and surely that is the prayer we should also make for ourselves. Final thought : a poem by E.H. Richards,

A wise old owl sat on an oak The more he saw the less he spoke; The less he spoke the more he heard; Why aren't we like that wise old bird?

Revd Ian M. Finn

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