Is It Wise?
Biblical Advice For Making Decisions
In February of 2024, I wrote a piece about wisdom titled “Are We Wise?”
This may have been the first Christian thought piece I had ever publicly published, and it was an idea about things to consider when seeking wisdom. Looking back, I can see that though it is helpful to think about, it certainly lacks depth and even more so clarity. Now, I would like to bring to light a few things I believe are needed to understand in the case of wise decision-making.
There are three principles regarding wise decision-making that I would like to make.
1. The Fear Of The Lord
2. Just Because You Can, Doesn’t Mean You Should.
3. Consider the Long Term
To begin, I would like to discuss “The Fear Of The Lord.”
One of the fascinating things about scripture is that you can study verses for years and continue to glean new life from them regularly. Proverbs 9:10 tells us, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is insight.”
Usually, when most look at this verse, the first thing that might come to mind is the idea of fear actually meaning something like, “belief in the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Which certainly isn’t a wrong conclusion to make, but that really is only the beginning. Some might be tempted to believe from that thought alone that one becomes wise and begins to make wise decisions simply by being a believer. However, many can be believers for decades and still be incredibly foolish.
So what else would we need then to be sure we are making wise decisions? Well, Insight! The ability to discern how things work and how to properly have an intuitive understanding and apply oneself towards a particular person or thing. That’s Insight!
So how do we get that? Well, according to this verse, it’s through “knowledge of the Holy One.” Now, knowledge isn’t just having information about God. Plenty of people have information about God. That would be to know OF God. Knowledge here is a bit more than that. To KNOW God is to be intimately acquainted with Him. Here’s what I mean by that. Many fanatics of celebrities, whether singer/songwriters, professional athletes, or actors, can oftentimes tell you all the achievements, awards, or even spouses that these individuals have had. However, they have often never spent time with them, talked to them, or even met them. That would be to know OF someone. Rather, to KNOW someone is to have spent intentional and cherished time with another regularly. To be aware of their character, their beliefs, their passions, their convictions, and any other personal traits that can only be discovered by spending close time with one another. That is to KNOW someone. In this instance, that of course comes through studying God’s word, prayer, fellowshiping with the local church, sitting under healthy preaching, serving the body of believers, and even ministering to the lost. It’s by involving oneself in the works of the Lord and the ordinary means of grace, which helps acquaint us with God and grow in the knowledge of Him.
So what do we have so far, then, as it pertains to this verse? We can understand that the beginning of wisdom is having faith in God, and we can build insight into wise decision-making by knowing God. That may seem like all that’s available here, maybe even all we need; however, there’s still something else that we can extract from this verse that isn’t directly stated. Read the first part again. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom…” Do you see it? How can this be applied further to help us make wise decisions? Let me shorten it to this: Fear the Lord.
In all of your decisions, the wisest decision will always be that which honors the Lord and His commands first and foremost. Fearing the Lord’s opinion most of all, more so than fearing the opinion of man, or even more than keeping the existence of our own comfort, is what will always be the wise decision. For example, confessing a sin you have committed against someone could potentially lead to you losing your position of leadership, spouse, or the respect of your peers, but God commands us to repent and confess. Despite the potential loss, the wise decision is to confess. Others may be tempted to cut corners, tell half-truths, and even use manipulative tactics to “bring people to a saving faith.” However, no matter what their numbers and results might say on paper, this strategy is unwise. The old saying, “The ends justify the means,” is never an appropriate excuse for sin. Only the full truth of the gospel is the wise approach of evangelism.
Wise decision-making begins when honoring the Lord and obeying His commands is the decisive factor in the choices we make, no matter how potentially "injurious" (I use that word in a humanistic sense) to your career, relationships, comfort, or otherwise those decisions might be. As Christians, we should not lie to save our rear ends. We should not withhold from engaging in restoring relationships because of an uncomfortable feeling. What ought to be at the center of our decision-making is simply, “Do I fear the Lord more than man and the desire of my own comfort?” This is what we can understand to help lead us towards wise decisions.
The second point that I would like to discuss is this:
"Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should."
In almost every children’s story, whether that’s about superheroes, knights, rebellions, etc. There’s always a clear depiction of good versus evil and light versus darkness. We learn from an early age what would be considered a black-and-white approach to identifying problems. The Bible, too, certainly lists some obvious black-and-white sins, such as “Don’t commit adultery, Do not steal, and Do not murder.” These acts are easy to identify as sins, which is, of course, unwise, because of just how clear it’s been laid out for us by God. Unfortunately for us, however, most of reality is usually not so obvious. A fact of life is that there are all sorts of “grey” areas when it comes to understanding it.
I’m going to share with you two examples of permissible acts, but unwise decisions to make. One is regarding others, and the other is regarding oneself.
Our first example, which considers our permissible actions towards others, comes to us from the books of Romans and 1st Corinthians.
In the book of Romans, chapter 14 and 1st Corinthians 8, Paul speaks on the truth that for some, consuming certain foods is sinful, but for others, consuming that same food is not. Why is that? Because for those who it violates their conscience, it is sinful to do so. They believed that food offered to idols before ingestion was to participate in the act of idol worship.
Paul makes it clear that food is morally neutral and that ingesting food previously offered to an idol does not mean you were actively participating in idol worship. He even goes on to explain that the individuals who believed this lacked knowledge (remember that word?) in the faith. So if this is their belief, then he advocates not participating in the consumption of this food.
To the other believers in this church who had greater knowledge and knew it was perfectly permissible to eat the food, Paul still exhorts them not to use this freedom to eat these meals for the sake of love for their fellow believers who lacked. Paul makes it clear that though eating the food is not inherently sinful and is certainly permissible, it can become both sinful and unwise when we don’t consider the effect it has on others around us. This is an obvious depiction of refraining from exercising one’s rights for the sake of others.
Our second example of "Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should," focuses on refraining for the sake of one’s own benefit.
1st Corinthians 6:12 says, “"All things are lawful for me," but not all things are helpful. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be dominated by anything.” (This language is also repeated in 1 Corinthians 10:23). Paul is showing here that he is refraining from certain things, because they are not beneficial to his body, which is a temple of the Holy Spirit within him.
There are some professing Christians whose approach to decision-making seems to have only two prerequisites for them to say “yes.”
1. Is it not a sin?
2. Do I have a desire to do it?*
Not that these shouldn’t or can’t be considered when making a decision, but if these are your only guidelines for decision-making, you ought to understand that that is quite foolish.
You may have a desire to only eat cake for every meal of the day for the rest of your life. It certainly isn’t a sin to eat cake, and cake is quite good! But to do so would have disastrous consequences. You would quickly suffer from malnutrition and speed up your eventual death. Caring for your body is honoring the Lord, and I’d hope that I wouldn’t have to expand on this idea any further.
Stopping with having these two questions alone can have disastrous consequences. As much as we may wish that making decisions was as black and white as the children’s stories made them out to be, unfortunately, we live in a world where a large number of factors ought to be considered when making our daily decisions. Wisdom considers many things before it acts. So, before doing something, even if you have the right to do it and the desire to do it, consider the effects it might have both on others and yourself.
* Sometimes (oftentimes) the wise decision goes against our natural desires as well. So, the desire to do something is worth considering; however, that should not hold the primary weight in your decision-making.
Lastly, I would like to discuss “Consider the Long Term.”
This principle is the idea of being presented with multiple options in which there aren’t any necessarily "sinful" or “wrong” decisions present, but each one holds different outcomes, and discernment becomes necessary in determining the quality of these choices.
There are a number of Biblical verses that could be applied here.
Proverbs 14:8 “The wisdom of the prudent is to discern his way, but the folly of fools is deceiving.”
Proverbs 20:21 “An inheritance gained hastily in the beginning will not be blessed in the end.”
Ecclesiastes 7:8 “Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.”
1st Corinthians 15:33 “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company ruins good morals.”
Hebrews 11:24-26 “By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.”
Galatians 6:7-8 “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.”
The references to consider long-term wisdom over short-term folly is constant throughout scripture.
In most circumstances, the long-term costs should be considered over the short-term. I’ll give two examples for this topic. One will be regarding a simple common decision, and the other will involve relationships.
For our first example, we all have to wear pants. One of the most common pairs of pants is denim jeans. Denim is made from cotton, but what specifically makes that cotton denim is dependent on the weave in which the cotton is patterned. Your cotton T-shirt isn’t denim because it’s cotton that has been woven together in a different pattern.
If you’ve spent any time shopping for denim, you would be quick to notice that some pairs cost $60 while others cost $300. Both are denim, but what makes one so much more expensive than the other? Well, usually what causes this is dependent on a few factors, one being the quality of the cotton used, whether it’s a 100% cotton, if it’s raw or pre-washed denim, and even what specific looms are used when manufacturing them. All these factors determine the quality of the denim that you’re purchasing.
On average, today’s American fashion focuses on immediate comfort. Large quantities of jeans now have a cotton-spandex blend for the sake of mobility through stretch. These types of jeans tend to cost less and offer a multitude of waist sizes and inseam lengths for a quick off-the-rack fit. 100% cotton jeans that are defined as selvedge and raw denim often feel less flexible when first worn, and usually offer fewer waist sizes and only 2 inseam lengths, while being more expensive.
You may think to yourself, “Well, the choice is obvious! More options, a quicker more comfortable fit, and cheaper must mean the cotton-spandex is my best option!” If you were to think this, you would be too hasty to consider the outcome of this decision. You see, those types of pants require regular washing to maintain them. With each wash, the spandex breaks down and loses its ability to return to shape, and the cotton used in these types of jeans tends to be easily torn by friction, which means they’re more likely to fray after just a few uses. What this means is that after a year or two, you’ll need to go back and buy another pair to replace them, because they now sag uncontrollably and, in some cases, can’t be mended or repaired.
The 100% cotton selvedge and raw denim may be $300, but it requires less maintenance, is much more durable against friction, doesn’t begin to sag, and even softens over time to fit the shape of your specific body structure. If ever this pair manages to tear, they’re also mendable with your local tailor. These types of jeans usually last you for the rest of your life, and grow more comfortable with every wear.
If you purchase the cotton-spandex blend jeans for $60, you will often find yourself spending more than $300 in the long run after just a few years, and continue to spend countless more over the rest of your life, replacing that pair time and time again. If you buy the $300 pair to begin with, you usually only have to worry about spending that money one time, and you will spend far less over your lifetime for doing so. It’s obviously not sinful to buy the cheaper pair of jeans, and they may be good in the moment, but if you want to consider the long-term financial cost of doing so, it’ll cost you much more down the road to maintain them, meaning the $300 jeans become your best financial decision.
Our second example involves relationships. When it comes to interpersonal romance, character should be heavily considered over other lesser qualities. The end goal for Christian dating is marriage, and in the marriage relationship, the Bible calls for the husband to be the head or leader of the household. Being a leader requires the ability to be decisive. If throughout the dating process, the man cannot make up his mind to commit to a woman, whether that be by simply asking her out, or dragging his feet when it comes to making things "official," then he is expressing his inability to fulfill the role God commands of him. He may be a nice guy or fun to spend time with, but a woman shouldn’t have to "convince" a man to date her. If he is a leader and a discerning man, then he ought to be able to make his decisions about her intentionally and without reservation.
In the opposite effect, the wife is called to be the husband’s helper.* To be an effective helper requires one to be both reliable and communicative. A woman may be very pretty and kind, but if she is unreliable and does not communicate well, she will harm her husband more often than help him in fulfilling his biblical calling to his family (Proverbs 31:30). A business owner would never employ help such as this. Why then should a man take on a wife with this character, to help him handle the even more important God-given responsibility of leading and protecting his family?
The main black and white rule in biblical dating is that it would be a sin to date someone who is not a Christian. It would not necessarily be a sin to marry an immature man or an immature woman as long as they are Christians; however, their character and the quality of the individual’s ability to fulfill their God-given roles ought to be wisely considered before a covenantal commitment to that individual. In the worst case of these scenarios, a man who is regularly indecisive about his romantic interests would be more susceptible to being unfaithful to his wife in the later years of their marriage. Just as an unreliable woman is more likely to cause her husband to carry the full weight of the responsibility of both his family and his work. Neither of these types of indivduals are explicitly sinful to marry, but they come with characteristics that make them demanding and burdensome lifelong partners (Hosea 8:7).
*The role of a Helper is often misconstrued with the role of a Mother. There is a fine line that separates these two roles. A Helper assists a husband in his work, offering alleviation from a task that he is already completing. To mother a man is to make up for his immaturity in fulfilling his responsibilities for him, as though he were still a child. A deeper look into the details and examples of our God-given roles in a marriage is a topic for another day.
I’m certain that I could spend hours, if not days or months, on this topic. But let me simply end with this today, James 1:5 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.”
Pray to the Lord for Wisdom, and use these guidelines I’ve presented today for healthy and wise living. Sin makes us stupid, and the more we engage with it, the more we walk in foolishness. But avoid foolishness by fearing the Lord, be willing to set aside your personal rights for the sake of others, and consider the long-term outcome of your desires.
I might also recommend a helpful daily resource here:
God’s Wisdom For Navigating Life
