The Gift of the Word of Wisdom

The Gift of the Word of Wisdom ― Jay Zinn

A WORD OF WISDOM is the God-given insight into responding to difficult and complex problems and situations. This gift does not come from naturally derived wisdom based on human study, knowledge, or experience. It comes to us supernaturally. It is God's power, not soul power. It is “the” WORD on a subject or situation at hand that brings about a solution and/or the will of God to address the matter.

For example, in the Old Testament, Solomon asked for wisdom to rule God’s people when he first took up the mantle as Israel’s king. God answered his prayer, and the first manifestation came when two prostitutes brought him a complex problem (see 1 Kings 3:17-28). Both were mothers of newborn sons. One had accidentally rolled on top of her baby at night and suffocated it. She then swapped her dead son for the living one of the other mothers while she slept. There were no witnesses or DNA testing in those days—just one mother’s word against the other.

Solomon faced a difficult decision. Here’s where the wisdom from God came. He ordered the child to be cut in two and give half to each mother. What?! How barbaric, you might think. But this order revealed the heart of the true mother who begged for the child’s life and to give it to the other woman who claimed it was hers. The other prostitute agreed to the order so that the child’s life would end. Solomon then made his decision. Guess which mother he declared was true and gave her the child?

Another example in the New Testament is when the Pharisees and Herodians tried to trap Jesus about whether it was right to pay Caesar taxes. If he had said “yes, then he would have been accused of supporting Caesar and the occupation of Rome in Israel. This would have put him at odds with the Jews, who all resented Rome’s presence and wanted to be rid of them. If he had said “no,” they would accuse him of being against Rome and leading an insurrection. Jesus outed their trap and hypocritical flattery. He asked for a coin used to pay the tax. He held it up when they handed him one and asked, “Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?” They replied, “Caesar’s.” Then he said, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” By saying this, it showed he was neither for nor against Rome. Their issue with Rome wasn’t the battle he came to fight. He came instead to die for the souls of men. So they left him and went away (Matthew 22:15-22).

Immediately following this occasion, the Sadducees tried their trap on him. Unlike the Pharisees, they believed there were no spirits, or angels, or a resurrection of the dead (see Matthew 22:23; Acts 23:8). They did, however, believe in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but that they were dead and existed no more in any form of an afterlife in spirit or body. Jesus said to them,

“...about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living (Matthew 22:32-33).”

The wisdom in this “WORD” was that Jesus showed them their error in not knowing scripture or the power of God. They didn’t catch that God spoke in the eternal realm of the present tense. Not “I was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” in the past, but NOW in their present afterlife as spirits who still exist and live today. In other words, “I am their God today,” where they exist with the spirits of righteous men and women made perfect (Hebrews 12:23). This silenced the Sadducees, exposing their error and astonished the crowd who heard it. Jesus received a download of the gift of the WORD of wisdom imparted to him by the Holy Spirit that anointed him for this very thing at the Jordan River.