Get Wisdom! Get Wealth! (The Solomon Series)

Solomon’s 10th Commandment
Thou shalt use thy wisdom to acquire thy wealth, and thy wealth to acquire more wisdom.


(Editor’s note: This article is part of a series of life lessons that feature the wisdom of King Solomonvisit this page to see more)


The King is back and today’s lesson is one of the key pillars of his entire philosophy. I’d venture to say this little nugget was a big part of how Solomon became one of the richest men of his day and one of the wisest of all time.

Learn this wisdom yourself, apply it to your life, and you’ll surely put yourself on the path to living your best life now.

Wealth Comes from Wisdom

“By wisdom, a house is built, through understanding it is established, and through knowledge, its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures.” (Proverbs 24: 3-4)

Take a moment to let that sink in. I’ve read this quote from Solomon more times than I can count. It’s one of my all-time favorite proverbs and I actively try to live this principle as part of my daily routine. I’m hopeful that by sharing it with you today, you can make it a part of your life and soar to new heights.

Let’s dig deeper into this wisdom to unlock its mysteries. There’s a lot more than meets the eye with this quote. Consider the following…

Wisdom: The foundation

Without sufficient wisdom, everything you are building will be naught but a house of cards, doomed to fall when the storms of life inevitably come.

Build upon a solid foundation and you’ll increase your odds of success. Build on the shifting sands, or worse yet skip the foundation building stage, and your house will surely fall. This concept was so important that Jesus also warned us about the importance of building a solid foundation his parable about The Wise and Foolish Builders.

No matter what you’re building make wisdom your foundation. With wisdom in place, your house/financial portfolio/career/life will have its capstone in place from which you can confidently move forward. Without that basic foundation, you’ll flail around and eventually fold.

Understanding: The walls and roof.

Laying down a solid foundation is great, but it takes more than that alone to build a house. We need to erect the walls and a roof too. As you continue forwards, it’s important to keep learning, by doing so you’ll gain a new understanding that you can use to not just survive but thrive.

The result: you’ll firmly establish yourself, even as others fall by the wayside.

Why do so many people have so little savings? Why do most businesses fail? Why do so many give up on their dreams? Because most of us don’t take the time to establish a foundation based on wisdom, nor do we continue to invest in our understanding to advance our skill stack.

With a weak foundation and lack of advanced understanding, we become also-rans in the never-ending rat race of mediocrity. Our money sprouts wings and flies away. Our business loses out to competition. Our dreams fade.

But it doesn’t have to be this way — Solomon knew about these dangers and implored his readers to do something about it.

“Get Wisdom! Get Understanding!”

He wrote in Proverbs 4:5, for the wise king knew that these were the building blocks of long-term success, the keys to creating a lasting legacy.

Knowledge: The Treasure inside

Build with wisdom. Advance with Understanding. Continue to invest in yourself and eventually you’ll reach a stage of mastery where you’ll acquire special knowledge that will reward you with true prosperity. You’ll enjoy those rare and beautiful treasures that King Solomon was speaking about.

Does it take effort to acquire such knowledge? Certainly. But that’s the price that must be paid if you want to build a lasting legacy – one based on the time-tested pillars of Wisdom, Understanding, and Knowledge.

You can’t build a house like this overnight, but if you put to use these tools and have the patience to allow them time to work their magic in your life, you will be handsomely rewarded. You portfolio with become recession-proof, your career will prosper, your businesses will soar.

From Wisdom: Wealth

From a strictly financial point of view, we can use this wisdom to build wealth. For most of us, it takes time to build our family’s wealth. Relying on winning the lottery or get rich quick schemes is a recipe that will lead to poverty for most people because even if they work, any money you make will soon be gone. Solomon warned us about this too…

“Of what use is money in the hands of a fool since he has no desire to get wisdom?” (Proverbs 17:16)

Don’t be that fool. Instead, take the time to acquire wisdom before you chase after wealth. You’ll be glad you did. Learn about the benefits of budgeting, money management, saving, basic investing – this will be your foundation of wisdom. As you acquire some wealth, use it to gain even more wisdom. Invest in your financial education. Spend some money on surrounding yourself with trusted advisors (accountants, lawyers, financial planners, etc). Outsource menial tasks so you can get the highest ROI for your time.

Practice what you’ve learned, keep striving to learn more, and be disciplined and prudent, and over time your eyes will open to hidden knowledge that will help you truly understand how to make the most of your money so that you can live a life of financial freedom.

I’m not suggesting that you have to be super rich to be fulfilled, only that you should strive to have enough wisdom such that you are the ruler of your money and not vice versa – regardless of how much you earn, any of us can achieve this if we acquire the knowledge necessary to live in this manner.

It’s been proven time and time again – it’s not how much you make, but how much you keep. With wisdom, you can keep more of whatever you make so that you can enjoy the treasures of life that are most meaningful to you.

What is your Wealth?

Solomon’s wisdom applies to more than just finances or building the proverbial house. We could substitute any number of other endeavors – building a career, learning a sport/musical instrument, and even the concept of building the best version of YOU there can be. Let’s talk about the you in You.

If you want to live the best life possible, you’ll need to become the best YOU possible.

How do you build the best you?

By using wisdom to build a solid foundation within your life. Once you’ve done that, you can continue to learn about yourself and your world and gain the understanding you need to establish your place in life (for example discovering your mission or deciding what you want your life’s legacy to be all about).

Having built a foundation of wisdom by knowing yourself, and then gaining the understanding necessary to truly know your life’s mission, you’ll be on your way to living a life fulfilled – and when you take action each day to fulfill your mission, you’ll end up acquiring the deepest knowledge of all about yourself, that in turn, will start filling you with knowledge you could never have fathomed in the beginning: that rare and beautiful treasure will be YOU.

With wisdom as your guide, you’ll gain a sense of personal fulfillment and a conscious confidence that you are living your life’s destiny. Best of all, by becoming the best you possible, you’ll put yourself in a position to change the world by helping others too.

And it all starts with wisdom!

Whatever you are building, be sure to use Wisdom as your foundation. If you need help finding wisdom, just open King Solomon’s Book of Proverbs to pretty much any page, And I’m confident it will give you understanding that will improve your life!

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