1. Wisdom

Wisdom in Scripture

The goals for this lesson are to establish that there are multiple sources from which wisdom may grow and to learn more about the biblical idea of wisdom.

If students have had enough time to complete the What Is Wisdom? homework from the What Is Wisdom? lesson, you can debrief it together in class. In your discussion, you might ask students to compare what they learned from their adult conversation partners and how it compares with their own thinking. If they have not completed the assignment yet, this debrief could instead take place when Connecting Wisdom to Science is covered.

Now is a good time to introduce Where Is Wisdom?. This activity engages students in comparing current cultural images of wise people with the concept of wisdom presented in Proverbs 8. It also invites them to see how the understanding of wisdom in Proverbs 8 might connect to possible motivations for learning and practicing natural science. The activity guide at the link above includes suggestions for structuring class discussion. If you have more class time, you could pair this activity with Cosmic Zoom.

For homework, you can give students the journal prompt “Defining Wisdom” from the Models and Methods Journal Prompts. This journal entry asks them to reflect on a quotation from Walter Brueggemann to facilitate a better understanding of wisdom.