Daniel was wise

Daniel, a God fearing man, devoted to the faith but serving in a palace that defiled God with certain practices. What struck me about Daniel was his wisdom in how he got out of these types of practices. For example, through his good judgment and communication skills Daniel’s wisdom came from how he conversed with the kings officials. He never argued or rebelled when the officials told him what he had to do. Instead he simply spoke to them in wisdom and tact by offering other solutions to their assertions.

Daniel chapter 1 – wise with the king’s officials.

Daniel and the other wise men went through significant training prior to serving the King. During their training one aspect was to eat off the King’s table of meat and wine, supposedly to make them healthy and strong. However to Daniel, and Israelite customs, eating this way was sinful and dishonouring to God. Why? Well, the king’s food offered the first portion of the slaughtered meat to idols and a portion of the wine to a pagan altar. Since Daniel never made exceptions that trumped serving God, he presented another option to only eat vegetables and water instead. He created a test for 10 days to only eat his way and after the ten days the king’s officials were to judge his health and strength. Instead of letting his feelings of fear and emotions of worry dictate his decisions, Daniel used wisdom to solve problems.

“Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.” So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days.At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables instead.Daniel 1:12-16

Wisdom in conflict

Proverbs 3:7, “Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil”. This was Daniel… nothing feared him more than his fear for the Lord. He did not allow what he could SEE stop him from believing in what God saw. More importantly, He knew what God saw by believing in His law and making choices based on his knowledge of Him.

Similarly to Daniel’s situation Jesus also faced what he could not eat, which would have defiled His own beliefs in God. The Devil tempted Jesus with bread to trick Him into serving His immediate satisfaction rather than His eternal one.

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Matthew 4:1-4

How did Jesus combat the devil… He did it with scripture, the ultimate truth. Wisdom speaks truth and asks, what does the Bible say about this?

What wisdom looks like for us

Daniel, known for his outstanding gifts in language and literature brought about favour from the kings. However, he never took credit for the gift of wisdom he had.