by Veronica Bergschneider

Created on: February 20, 2010   Last Updated: March 01, 2010

Looking at the Bible through the sinful eyes of a fallen humanity, many people see God’s commands as harsh rules for living. However, through the lens of spiritual maturity, Christians learn that their Lord has hidden immense amounts of wisdom behind these same commandments. Once people see and follow this wisdom, they can better understand how God means for the world to function in peace and harmony instead of fighting about what everything really means and who’s right or wrong. Adopting God’s wise counsel on life also gives Christians the opportunity to model for others the meaning of the Lord’s love and grace and how to live in the right paths for salvation.

The first command God gives in wisdom tells Adam in Genesis 2:26-17 that Adam may use any plant in the Garden of Eden for sustenance except the Tree of Life in the center. Eating the fruit of this tree would give Adam wisdom equal to that of God, and although humanity is made in God’s image, it is not meant to equal him. This demonstrates the Lord’s wisdom by trying to teach the lesson that creation should not regard itself as equal to or higher than the creator. To regard oneself as equal to or higher than the creator breeds an arrogance that begets other sins by instilling in the person a sense of entitlement to whatever he or she wants rather than what God wants for the person. Jesus exemplifies the humility gained from this wisdom, for even though he was God’s only begotten Son, Jesus did not think of himself as equal to the Father of all creation, but honored and praised God as such. True humility and wisdom come from waiting and praying for God’s will to be done on His time, not humanity’s, for as it is written in Acts 1:7, “It is not for man to know the day nor the hour that the Father has chosen by His authority.” In this, Jesus instructed the Apostles to be patient for God’s will for them, a necessary lesson in the acquisition of wisdom for the citizens of today’s society of immediate gratification.

The most famous commands of the Lord lie in the Ten Commandments handed down to Moses on Mount Sinai and recorded in Exodus 20:1-5. God instituted these ideals for society after noticing for several centuries that people ran rampant in their sins against Him and one another. As a wise parent does, God handed down guidelines to His chosen children, the nation of Israel, to bring them back to Him as He led them away from

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