Douglas S. Winnail has once again reminded the Living Church of God faithful that wisdom is really valuable. Greater than rubies. Greater than gold. The key, he says, is a proper fear of God and obedience to God’s instructions. Then he dutifully wheels out the usual proof texts: Proverbs, a quick nod to the child Jesus increasing in wisdom, James 1:5, and 2 Timothy 3:14-17. The punchline? Follow these instructions so you can become more useful instruments in God’s hands.
How convenient.
Let’s set the Old Covenant scroll aside for a moment and ask the obvious question the note carefully avoids: what does the New Covenant actually say wisdom is?
Paul does not say Christ is a really helpful example of someone who kept the instructions so you should go do likewise. He says Christ is the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24, 30). Not a pointer toward more law-keeping. The thing itself. The wisdom of God is a person, not a checklist of holy days, clean meats, and second-tithe accounting rules that LCG still treats as the gold standard of spiritual maturity.
Solomon wrote Proverbs under the Old Covenant. He was the wisest man of his era, and it still wasn’t enough to keep him from accumulating a thousand wives and turning his heart after other gods. Jesus explicitly claimed to be greater than Solomon (Matthew 12:42). The one “greater than Solomon” did not arrive to hand out a slightly improved version of the Mosaic instructions. He arrived to fulfill them and then write something better on the hearts of those who believe (Hebrews 8:10; 10:16). That is the New Covenant. Winnail’s note treats the New Covenant as if it is merely the Old one with better lighting.
“Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” is true. It is also true that perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). The New Covenant does not leave people perpetually trembling under a system of external obedience so they can stay “useful.” It gives the Spirit so that the law is no longer something you strive to perform from the outside; it becomes the natural fruit of a new heart. LCG’s version of wisdom has a curious habit of translating into more fear of missing a feast, more fear of the second tithe audit, and more fear of the minister who might decide you are no longer useful enough.
James 1:5 is about asking for wisdom in the middle of trials, not about asking for clearer instructions on which meats are still unclean or how much of your income must be routed through the church’s bank account. And 2 Timothy 3:15 does not say the Scriptures make you wise so you can become a more reliable instrument for organizational ends. It says they make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Salvation. Through faith. Not through demonstrated obedience to a filtered set of Old Covenant regulations that the Living Church of God has decided are still binding while the rest of the book of Hebrews is quietly de-emphasized.
The child Jesus increased in wisdom, stature, and favor. Adult Jesus then went to the cross, rose, and poured out the Spirit. The “instructions” that mattered after that were not a call to re-enact Solomon’s court or Moses’ camp. They were a call to believe, to receive the Spirit, and to walk in the freedom of the New Covenant rather than the yoke that neither the fathers nor the apostles were able to bear (Acts 15:10).
Winnail closes by urging the faithful to follow “these instructions” so they can be useful instruments. Useful to whom, exactly? The God who already declared the work finished, or the organization that still needs a steady stream of obedient members who never quite grow out of the fear-based system that keeps the lights on?
Solomon’s wisdom was real. It was also incomplete. The New Covenant does not invite you to go back and polish the incomplete version. It offers the wisdom of God Himself—Christ—apart from the works of the law. That is not a minor adjustment to Winnail’s note. It is the reason the note, for all its polished Proverbs citations, still manages to miss the point.
Silent Pilgrim
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