The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding. -Proverbs 4:7 (NIV)
Well, I am no certified, degreed, or otherwise endorsed Biblical scholar (but you're reading my blog anyways). But it seems to me like the beginning of wisdom is recognizing that you don't have wisdom, that you need wisdom, that the wisdom you have isn't enough.
Wisdom is realizing how foolish you are.
It struck me as strange (which is probably why my mind wouldn't let go of it all day long). Wisdom is realizing how foolish you are? Am I reading that verse right? The teacher in Proverbs is speaking to his son encouraging his son to listen to his words, to seek wisdom, to avoid wayward women, and to get wisdom. Not once is it implied that the son is foolish. In fact, Proverbs speaks of correcting the foolish as a way of inviting their scorn where as correcting the wise earned their respect.
Which makes me think that either the son is foolish and the father isn't following other proverbial advice or the son is already wise and the father is reminding him that wisdom is realizing how foolish you are.
I think it's the latter.
And if you stop to think about it, that seems to fit with the rest of scripture as well. Paul, while writing to the wayward church in Corinth, spoke of God's foolishness being greater than man's wisdom. Paul knew about Solomon, he knew the proverbs, he'd read through Ecclesiastes. Paul was well versed in the pinnacle of man's wisdom.
Yet God's foolishness is greater than man's wisdom. The wisest man is undone by the foolishness of God. The wisest man, if he is truly wise, realizes his own foolishness.
The first step to being wise is to get wisdom. To acknowledge that there's wisdom out there that you don't have, that you need, that is worth everything you have to gain its understanding.
I don't know about you, but i don't feel wise very often. So most of the time it's easy to remember that I need wisdom, that I am foolish. I feel like both Obi-Wan's fool and the fool who follows the first fool.
But for those moments when I do feel wise...those are the moments I must recognize my own foolishness and remember that I need more wisdom.