The cross of Jesus is our wisdom

Deuteronomy 1:13 (ESV)
Choose for your tribes wise, understanding, and experienced men, and I will appoint them as your heads.''

Choose for your tribes wise. Here Moses gives the criteria for who shall be the judges over the people of Israel. First is a man who has wisdom.

Knowledge may be gathered through hard study, but wisdom is only given by God. It is a product of heaven. When we think of wisdom, we think of the wisdom of Solomon. Yet we forget that wisdom was given to him by God from above as a gift:
1 Kings 4:29 (KJV)
And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea shore.
And as we read, the wisdom of Solomon was the wisdom of God, being an impartation of God's own wisdom to him:
1 Kings 3:28 (KJV)
And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged; and they feared the king: for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him, to do judgment.

So wisdom is not to be thought as simply how much information a man has gathered in his brain, or as something that is worked up by a man's own strength through prolonged thinking or meditation. It must be given from heaven from God's own mind and deposited into the mind of the man by God's Spirit. Any other "wisdom" cannot be called wisdom at all, but to God it is only foolishness:
1 Corinthians 3:19 (ESV)
For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their craftiness,"

Therefore, in order to be truly wise in God's eyes, we must first reject counterfeit "wisdom" that grows from the world. We must become fools first, in worldly standards:
1 Corinthians 3:18 (ESV)
Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.

This is what Paul desired to do once he came to know the Lord Jesus. He realized all the human "wisdom" and education that he had been taught were useless in becoming wise in God's terms. He realized that they were nothing but a hinderance to him knowing Jesus:
Philippians 3:4-8 (ESV)
though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: [5] circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; [6] as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. [7] But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. [8] Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ

After we have counted every wisdom we know from the world as nothing but rubbish, how then can we gain the wisdom that is from heaven? Firstly, we must seek the wisdom from God in prayer and petition. We must kneel and beg at His holy throne for wisdom. We must seek and ask that He sends His Holy Spirit that we may have a little bit of His own wisdom. Isn't this how Solomon became wise? Did he not ask the Lord in prayer that God may give him wisdom?
1 Kings 3:9-12 (ESV)
Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?" [10] It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. [11] And God said to him, "Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches or the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, [12] behold, I now do according to your word. Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you.

God is pleased when we forsake our own efforts to gather wisdom from the dead resources of the world, and ask Him for wisdom. God is pleased when we are humble and admit that we are nothing but absolute fools, and when we depend on Him alone for wisdom. God was pleased with Solomon's humility, because he said that he is "only a little child" (1 Kings 3:7) and did not know anything. God surely loves those who say 'I know nothing', and humble themselves, begging only for a bread crumb of wisdom to fall from God's table.

Not only prayer, God has given us one ready resource through which our wisdom may come. Wisdom comes through the Word of God, the Bible:
2 Timothy 3:15 (ESV)
and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
God, through our seeking prayer, makes us to be wise through the Holy Scriptures. And the Holy Scriptures does not make us just wise, as though for no purpose, but gives us the wisdom that leads us to salvation. So the only worthy wisdom that we can have is wisdom that makes us wise for salvation. And such wisdom is from God alone.

There are wisdom out there that leads to eternal death. This is the 'wisdom' in doing evil:
Jeremiah 4:22 (ESV)
"For my people are foolish; they know me not;they are stupid children; they have no understanding. They are ''wise''-in doing evil! But how to do good they know not."
Some people are very intelligent, and "wise" in worldly sense, but they use this wisdom to do great sins. Hitler was undoubtedly a very "wise" man, but to do what? In killing people, in hating people, in cleverly carrying out the will of Satan. What a wasted mind and wisdom! See how God calls such people, who are "wise" in doing evil: foolish, ignorant, stupid, without understanding. God didn't think Hitler was wise at all, for he condemned himself to Hell with his own wisdom to sin. Any wisdom that makes us to be buried in our sins is not God's wisdom, but is wisdom from the devil:
James 3:15 (ESV)
This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.
Let us therefore take special attention to the Holy Scriptures, which is able to make us wise unto salvation for our own selves, and that which helps us to assist others to have salvation.

But the most thing we must remember in our seeking for wisdom in prayer and Scriptures, is that wisdom is not a 'thing', but that Jesus Christ Himself IS the wisdom of God:
1 Corinthians 1:30 (ESV)
And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption,
1 Corinthians 1:24 (ESV)
but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
Colossians 2:2-3 (ESV)
that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, [3] in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God. Wisdom is a living Person. To be wise, therefore, means to have Jesus Christ, and to have the Spirit of Christ living in us. There is no other wisdom, and every other wisdom than Christ nothing but utter foolishness to God. We must therefore seek Christ in our prayers and find Christ in Scriptures. Christ is the Wisdom that leads us to eternal life. Hear Christ's cry through the voice of wisdom in Solomon's proverbs:
Proverbs 8:35-36 (ESV)
For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the LORD, [36] but he who fails to find me injures himself; all who hate me love death."

Jesus Christ is the Wisdom of God that came from heaven:
James 3:17 (ESV)
But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.
Christ was this pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, merciful, good, impartial and sincere Wisdom that God sent from heaven to us. Yet we despised Him, and rejected this wisdom that God offered to us. For we loved our foolishnesses above God's wisdom:
John 3:19 (ESV)
And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

We crucified Him, thinking that Christ was a fool. We esteemed God's Wisdom as foolishness. We laughed and scorned at Him, as though He were a joke. How much did the murderers of Christ laugh that He could not even come down from a Cross, if He was indeed the Son of God as He claimed to be:
Matthew 27:39-40 (ESV)
And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads [40] and saying, "You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross."

Yet they did not realize that the Cross was God's wisdom to save mankind from the fate of eternal hell. To them it looked as foolishness, that God would be so weak to die a shameful, public death, on a cross, where murderers, thieves and the scums of mankind die? It was unthinkable, horrendous, and scandalous. It was a stumbling-block to them that they could not get across:
1 Corinthians 1:22-24 (ESV)
For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, [23] but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, [24] but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

The Cross is the hidden jewel that is hidden inside the treasure box of wisdom that is Christ. This is the highest wisdom that a man can attain to, because it was foolishness on God's side:
1 Corinthians 1:25 (ESV)
For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
It was indeed a "foolish" thing for God to do, to throw away His own Son, to save our lives from Hell. To forsake His own Beloved Son for a season, that He may have us - pathetic filthy sinners - forever. It was not a wise thing to do. But because of this, we are saved from eternities to eternities in the agony of Hell. There is no higher wisdom than this for a man to attain. Simply to know that God made this "foolish" decision to offer up His own Son for us, make us wiser than all the ancients.

Let us then, seek wisdom from God in prayers and in study of the Bible, that we may know Christ, and especially what He has done for us on the Hill of Golgotha. This is what makes a person wise. Not knowing the Gospel is what makes a man eternally foolish, stupid and ignorant in God's eyes. We need leaders who know, love and study the Gospel of Jesus Christ, those who only hold Christ as their own wisdom. We need leaders who live according to this Gospel of Jesus, in loving, serving and dying for others. Christ will choose such men to be heads over His house. Let us be such men, and inquire deep into the Cross that saved our souls.