O Be Wise

In what would have been his parting words had he not added the story of Sherem, Jacob counseled, “O be wise; what can I say more?” (Jacob 6:12)  This reminds me of what my mission president would often repeat to us as we tried to figure out what to do in various circumstances: “Just use wisdom!”  That’s good advice for any situation, but Jacob was not speaking about the every day common sense kind of wisdom.  Rather, I believe Jacob’s counsel should be considered in light of his earlier teachings about wisdom and learning.  He lamented about what the world considered wisdom: “O that cunning plan of the evil one! O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not.”  He then described a key aspect of true wisdom: “But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God” (2 Nephi 9:28-29).  For Jacob then, to be wise meant to hearken to the counsels of God, to keep His commandments.  Or, as he put it in the previous verse before counseling us to be wise: “My beloved brethren, repent ye, and enter in at the strait gate, and continue in the way which is narrow, until ye shall obtain eternal life.”  To be wise means that we continue in the narrow way of the Lord, to keep the commandments He has laid out to lead us to eternal life. 

               Other scriptures similarly invite us to use that kind of spiritual wisdom to follow and obey and serve the Lord.  The Psalmist declared, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments” (Psalm 111:10).  In a modern day revelation the Lord declared, “Behold, the laws which ye have received from my hand are the laws of the church, and in this light ye shall hold them forth. Behold, here is wisdom” (Doctrine and Covenants 58:23).  To keep His laws is wisdom.  King Benjamin emphasized something slightly different when he taught his people about wisdom, “And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God” (Mosiah 2:17).  Wisdom is to serve God and thus to serve others as well.  Perhaps Alma summarized what is at the heart of wisdom best when he taught his son Shiblon, “And now, my son, I have told you this that ye may learn wisdom, that ye may learn of me that there is no other way or means whereby man can be saved, only in and through Christ. Behold, he is the life and the light of the world. Behold, he is the word of truth and righteousness” (Alma 38:9).  To come unto Christ, to keep His commandments and walk in His ways, to know that He is the only means to come unto salvation—that is wisdom.  Jacob’s invitation to be wise was indeed a call to come unto the Savior.