MINING FOR TREASURE
THE DILIGENT ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM
Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place where gold is refined. Iron is taken from the earth, And copper is smelted from ore. Man puts an end to darkness, and searches every recess For ore in the darkness and the shadow of death. He breaks open a shaft away from people; In places forgotten by feet they hang far away from men; They swing to and fro. As for the earth, from it comes bread, but underneath it is turned up as by fire; Its stones are the source of sapphires, and it contains gold dust. – Job 28:1-6
My son, if you receive my words, and treasure my commands within you, so that you incline your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding; Yes, if you cry out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures; Then you will understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God. – Proverbs 2:1-5
Early in the Creation account, in the elaboration on the setting of the Garden of Eden, we find a reference to precious metals and stones: “The name of the first [River] is Pishon; it is the one which skirts the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and the onyx stone are there” (Genesis 2:11-12). It is interesting that the benefits of relatively difficult technologies are so quickly referenced, a testament both to man’s ingenuity and God’s desire for man to employ it. By Genesis 4:22, credit is already to given to an individual—Tubal-Cain—who instructed craftsman in the works of bronze and iron. Bronze is an alloy of copper and zinc, requiring t
hat both of these metals are extracted from ore, purified, and then melted together in proper proportion. Iron itself requires a specific process for extraction, and furthermore, we might imply that alloys of iron (which we now call “steel”) were being supervised by Tubal-Cain.
Thus it seems that, commensurate with the “dominion mandate” (Genesis 1:26-28), God expected humankind to work at producing value from the Earth given to him. And analogous to this, we see that many non-material acquisitions in life come about similarly: Through a generous endowment, followed by work: both “smart” and hard.
These non-material treasures available to humankind are the riches of knowledge and wisdom. Keep in mind as these are discussed, however, that “knowledge” is not merely intellectual, but often refers to the ability to know a thing or person intimately (Hebrew yada’), as in the sense of sexual consummation. And also make note that “wisdom” is not so much a heady ability to speak forth impressive insights as it is “life skill,” in the Hebrew chakam—the ability to carry out something proficiently.
To acquire knowledge and wisdom one must initiate the exploration. The Proverbs 2 passage above says that it requires “receiving,” “treasuring,” “inclining one’s ear,” “applying one’s heart,” “crying out” and “lifting up one’s voice,” “seeking,” and “searching.” Put simply, foolishness and ignorance are the default consequence of laziness. To get the non-material treasures of life, as with the material ones, a person must embark on an industrious endeavor. We all know of gold, and yet its abundance in Earth’s crust is a mere 1 part per 200 million by mass. And we all benefit from tons and tons of less precious metals such as iron and aluminum, but their mining, extraction, and refinement require massive amounts of ongoing energetic processes (largely powered by coal, which itself must be diligently worked out of the Earth).
So just as many are industrious to extract materials of great value, through the ages, high philosophers and common workers alike have struggled to find meaning in this life—to understand man’s purpose and to contribute something of value to the age in which one lives. This is not exclusively a Christian effort, but a human one. And so, throughout the ages, we have our heroes—individuals whose extraordinary efforts have influenced how societies think and act. Interestingly, when individuals can not rise to the occasion, we find fictional replacements: some of our greatest influences are found in plays and novels that great writers envisioned. We all value this: The person—real or imagined—that can mine the great truths and actions out of human experience.
Yet in this, we find that history repeats itself, and human deficiency and depravity emerge again and again. And we must find new heroes and new stories to inspire. So, profoundly and accurately enough, many of the most vested students of the profound collapse exhaustedly into existentialism, recognizing that we should ultimately abandon the search for meaning. In a strange way, this is healthy: Modernism has given way to postmodernism, disillusioned with man’s inherent ability to figure things out. Yet it is only healthy if it ultimately leads individuals back around the cycle to pre-modernism, in which humankind does not completely bail out, but instead seeks for supernatural revelation from a Source greater than us. Like abandoning a non-productive mine, humankind’s utter frustration can be productive, providing that the “land” is reassessed. When one recognizes that human fame is fleeting (Ecclesiastes 1:11, 2:16), that the human heart is deceitful “above all things” (Jeremiah 17:9), that knowledge ultimately brings sorrow (Ecclesiastes 1:18), that days “fly away” (Job 9:25, Psalm 89:47, 90:10, 144:4), and likewise, riches (Psalm 23:5, 27:24), he
or she is motivated to withdraw from the shaft of futile godless human effort and look elsewhere.
In a great irony, one’s massive effort is rewarded not for its sweat, but for its abandonment. God wants us to come to a place of brokenness, where we have struggled, and have realized that it is not in us: “O LORD, I know the way of man is not in himself; It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps” (Jeremiah 10:23). And in this, we strike gold after all. Treasures are found in unexpected places—in the great paradox that is grace. “At that time Jesus answered and said, ‘I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes’” (Matthew 11:25). Like a prospector who follows the rush, we are consumed with the reality that treasure is indeed abundant, and it is there for the taking. God gives freely, and that which he gives is of great value: “My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:2-3). In giving up human effort, we find that Christ is Himself the treasure we’ve been looking for, now freely given. It is not about us, but what we contain and become when Christ is in us: “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us” (2 Corinthians 4:7).
Thus, the treasure that we are compelled to seek as human beings is ultimately discovered not in exertion, but first in revelation:
Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, For wisdom and might are His. And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise And knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and secret things; He knows what is in the darkness, And light dwells with Him. – Daniel 2:20-22
Yet we do not remain idle in the midst of our surprise mother lode. God, who authored work and human enterprise in the first place, desires us to “work out [our] salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). Working for our salvation is not required, yet working it out is. And so, as regenerated, freely gifted believers, we must employ the tools God has given us to get after the reserves he has also given us, to work out the treasure, namely the knowledge, wisdom, and righteousness available to the believer. The mystery of this, however, is that the work we do is itself a gift: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). There may be a tendency to think of justification (being saved) and sanctification (being made complete in that salvation) as our tasks alone (the heresy of works righteousness), or as God’s task and our task differentially. To the latter, Paul warns,
Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations…These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh. – Colossians 2:20,23
So, in the great paradox that sets Christianity apart from all other endeavors, we work out the treasure of God in us not by works, but by faith at work.
The metaphor is often applied to another less obvious but indisputable treasure: fresh water. In the desert, one is assured fresh water if willing to go deep enough and draw it out. In the desert of human need, springs of living water may pour forth, and if and when they do not, there is always a direction to go: downward, in humility and faith, to where the best and purest of water is found. It is a metaphor illustrated beautifully throughout Scripture—in Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman (John 4), and alluded to in Proverbs 20:5: “The purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out” (NIV). Here we may infer that the man who “draws out” the purposes, or helps to work them out, may at times be anoth
er individual. Perhaps some of the greatest mining and well-tapping in human history has come in words of exhortation, inspiration, and encouragement to other brothers and sisters in Christ.
It is evident in the way that Jesus taught that he promoted the “mining” of knowledge and wisdom: “Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable. So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet: ‘I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world’” (Matthew 13:34-35). God has not made the search for deeper things needlessly difficult, but he has made it such that knowledge and wisdom require volitional diligence. He has brought us to the mother lode, and he wants us to dig in. If you haven’t yet done so, discover the treasure that is Christ. And, having done so, roll up your sleeves and get to work. The “unsearchable [past finding out, beyond comprehension] riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8) will keep you spiritually wealthy, always wanting more, and despite that, always satisfied.
© 2011 Chard Berndt
All Scriptures NKJV unless otherwise noted.