Wisdom Or Knowledge?
Over the last few decades, computers have gotten smaller, smarter, and faster.
My first computer was a boxy machine with a small, monochrome monitor, limited memory, and processor speeds just slightly faster than the proverbial tortoise.
In the 1990s, hot new computers began talking to other computers over the World Wide Web.
Ecclesiastes 12 and LDS Teachings
Soon, someone working at a desk in Timbuktu could download more data than a top-notch researcher could have tracked down a century before.
And if you listened closely to some of the most optimistic predictions from evangelists of virtuality, computers would help people double the amount of information in the world every few years.
With all this progress, can world peace be far behind?
LDS Commentary On Ecclesiastes 12
Solomon lived thousands of years ago. He never saw a computer, but he was pretty good with an abacus, and some people even say he was the wisest man who ever lived.
Solomon lived at a time when human knowledge was growing rapidly.
Philosophers were probing the hidden nature of the cosmos and writing insightful books about politics and art.
Ecclesiastes 12:1 In The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints
Solomon followed many of the important intellectual debates of his day. (The passage from Ecclesiastes indicates he experienced weariness along the way.)
He would have trouble grasping our modern-day computer revolution, but he was well familiar with people who confused wisdom with knowledge.
Solomon’s biblical Book of Proverbs is full of insightful comments about people who think they know everything but are actually fools.
Knowledge is information. It’s the kind of thing you can look up with the help of a dictionary, encyclopedia, library card file, or Internet search engine.
Ecclesiastes 12:13–14 And LDS Doctrine
If you want to know how to build a nuclear bomb or a hospital, knowledge will help you do a better job.
It is wisdom, however, that helps you know whether a bomb or a hospital would be more helpful for the human race.
We are living in an information age. Advertisements tell us that there’s more information on the computer chips in our digital cam¬era or coffeemaker than there was in some of the world’s biggest libraries a few centuries ago.
Remembering God In Youth (Ecclesiastes 12:1) – LDS Perspective
Half a dozen competing cable TV news channels run nonstop chatter while across the bottom of the screen, breaking news bulletins, weather reports, and sports scores rapidly scroll by.
Everywhere we turn, ads, sound bites, and promotions for this new product or that new service bombard us.
But as Solomon warned millennia ago, these things are not the source of the wisdom and guidance we need in life.
Ecclesiastes 12 And Preparing For Eternity
No matter how much information we have, we still need the wisdom that comes only from God.
God, give me your wisdom so I can make my way through the in¬formation overload of modern life.