Wednesday: The Wisdom of the Wise

From our perspective today, it’s easy to look at the questions that God had asked Job and realize how little a man like Job, living thousands of years ago, could understand about the created world. It wasn’t until the A.D. 1500s, for instance, that humans (at least some of them) finally understood that the motion of the sun in the sky was the result of the rotation of the earth on its axis, and the reverse of the orbit of the sun around the earth—a truth that most of us take for granted now.

Image © Lars Justinen from GoodSalt.com

Thanks mostly to modern science, we live today with knowledge of the natural world that people in Bible times couldn’t begin to comprehend. And yet, even with all this acquired knowledge, we humans are still so limited in our understanding of the natural world and its origins.

Read over the questions God asked Job in chapters 38 and 39. How much better could people answer them today? (Job 38-39)

There is no question that science has revealed to us facets of reality that were previously hidden. However, so much still remains for us to learn. In many ways, far from removing the majesty and the mystery of God’s creation, science has made it even more fascinating, revealing a depth and complexity of the natural world that previous generations knew nothing about.

“ ‘The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever.’ Deuteronomy 29:29. Just how God accomplished the work of creation He has never revealed to men; human science cannot search out the secrets of the Most High. His creative power is as incomprehensible as His existence.” — Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets,p. 113.

What warning, however, should we take from the following texts in regard to the great limits of human knowledge? 1 Cor. 3:19, 1 Cor. 1:18–27.

Even with all the knowledge humans have accumulated in the past few hundred years, the Creation remains full of wonders and mysteries that we can barely fathom. The more we learn about the created world, the more amazing and mysterious it appears to us. In what ways does the created world cause you to marvel before the power of our God?