Sermon Illustrations on Wisdom

You come across a fence running across a field for no obvious reason. The modern instinct is to clear it away. The better rule is that you may not remove it until you can say why it was put there. Once you know the reason, you may well be right to remove it. But not before. The person who cannot explain the fence is not being bold by pulling it down. They are being uninformed at speed.

Sourcing: The image comes from G.K. Chesterton's essay collection "The Thing" (1929), in the chapter on the drift of reformers. It is an argument, not an event: credit him and use it freely.

God offers Solomon anything. He is a young king with a large army on his borders, a construction programme, and rivals inside his own family. He asks for a hearing heart to judge the people and to discern between good and evil. Not victory, not wealth, not length of days. The text says the request itself pleased God, and notes, drily, that he received the other things as well.

Two women, one living baby, one dead baby, no witnesses, and contradictory testimony. There is no evidence to weigh. Solomon calls for a sword and orders the living child divided. The order is monstrous, and it is not a plan to kill a child; it is an instrument for producing evidence that testimony could not. The real mother gives the baby up rather than see it killed. The case decides itself.

Rehoboam inherits the kingdom and is asked to lighten the load his father imposed. He asks the old men who had served Solomon, and they tell him to speak kindly and the people will serve him forever. He does not like the answer, so he asks his contemporaries, who tell him to promise a heavier yoke and scorpions instead of whips. He takes the second answer. Ten tribes leave within days, and the kingdom never reassembles.

The two builders at the end of the Sermon on the Mount both hear the same words. The difference between them is not attendance, understanding, or agreement. It is that one did them. And both houses get the same weather. The storm is not a judgement on the second man; it is what happens to everyone, and it is the only way anyone finds out what is underneath.

A person can study a map of a city until they can draw it from memory and still be useless as a guide, because they have never been rained on at that junction, never found the market shut on a Monday, never learned which shortcut is a bad idea after dark. Someone who has walked it for years may not be able to draw it at all, and will get you there. Knowledge is the map. Wisdom is the walking.

The same book that records Solomon's request also records the end of his reign: hundreds of political marriages, foreign shrines built on the hills opposite Jerusalem for his wives' gods, and a kingdom that splits the moment he dies. The wisdom was real. It did not immunise him. 1 Kings puts the gift and the collapse in the same account, and does not attempt to reconcile them.

What is a good illustration about wisdom?

Solomon calling for a sword to settle a case with no evidence, because it shows wisdom as finding the question rather than knowing the answer. Chesterton's fence does the same job for decisions about change.

Where do preachers find illustrations?

For wisdom, craft is the richest source, carpentry, cooking, medicine, farming, because the Hebrew word is a craft word. Anything that shows skill developed by practice under a teacher will preach.

How many illustrations should a sermon have?

Two or three. Proverbs tempts preachers into a string of one-line examples; a sermon built that way tends to be enjoyable and completely unmemorable.

Do I need to cite an illustration's source?

Yes, and it is easy here. Chesterton's fence has a book and a year attached. If you cannot supply that much for a quotation, use the idea and drop the attribution rather than guessing at a name.

What is the difference between knowledge and wisdom?

Knowledge is information held; wisdom is skill in applying it at the right time and in the right way. That is why a congregation can be well taught and unwise, and why more teaching does not automatically fix it.

How do I preach Proverbs without it sounding like advice?

Keep it tied to the fear of the Lord, which the book calls the beginning of the whole enterprise. Detached from that, Proverbs is folk wisdom with better editing, and a congregation will hear it as such.