Meditation

Reader,

In many ways, today's verses come as a shock.

Whereas to this point, Wisdom has been portrayed as a gift of God that serves mostly human ends such as righteous living and good governance, today we see that Wisdom's scope has expanded dramatically.

Wisdom is now revealed as eternal, divine, and essential to creation itself, elevating our understanding of wisdom beyond knowledge. Wisdom is foundational to the creation and to the order of the universe.

No longer a teacher but an active participant in creation alongside God.

Making the world with God, not simply making sense of it for us.

I've added spacing and highlighting in the text to show the long sentence structure and repetition of "before" and "when," which compound to emphasize Wisdom's complete participation in creation.

Today's text is Proverbs 8:22-29

“The Lord brought me forth as the first of his works,​
before his deeds of old;
​²³ I was formed long ages ago,
at the very beginning, when the world came to be.

​
​²⁴ When there were no watery depths, I was given birth,
when there were no springs overflowing with water;
​²⁵ before the mountains were settled in place,
before the hills, I was given birth,
​²⁶ before he made the world or its fields
or any of the dust of the earth.

​
​²⁷ I was there when he set the heavens in place,
when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep,
​²⁸ when he established the clouds above
and fixed securely the fountains of the deep,
​²⁹ when he gave the sea its boundary
so the waters would not overstep his command,
and when he marked out the foundations of the earth.

Encouragement

"The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible... He is before all things, and in him all things hold together."

Colossians 1:15-17

Andy