The Spirit of Wisdom
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How does the Hebrew word ruach describe God's life-giving presence?
Welcome to Bible Project Podcast. We're in a series discussing the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God animates and sustains all of life. It's ruach in Hebrew or pneuma in Greek. It's the personal life-giving power of God that we live in and move in and breathe into our lungs.
Ruach and pneuma are the main biblical words to talk about how a creature exists. It has to be filled with God's presence in order to even be.
Today, we look at how the Spirit of God is closely connected to becoming wise. Spirit and wisdom.
If you look in the hundreds of passages where Ruach appears in the Hebrew Bible, you will find many passages where God's wisdom is close by.
We're going to look at how Joseph is able to interpret Pharaoh's dreams. Somehow, he connects to the thoughts of Pharaoh and makes sense of them.
And Pharaoh said to everybody standing around, are we able to find a man like this anywhere else? A man in whom is the Ruach Elohim?
We're going to look at the craftsman Bezalel, who's filled with the Ruach of God in order to create the tabernacle.
It's the ability to make Eden-like beauty, to make Eden out of cloth and gold metal. It's amazing.
In the Hebrew Bible, God's spirit supercharges characters so that they can become more of who God designed them to be. This is a partnership with the divine.
The whole premise of the biblical story is God has chosen to bring about his wise rule through human images. And so right there already is a marriage of divine and human agency.
Today, Tim Mackey and I talk about the spirit of God and wisdom. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Hey, Tim. Hey, John, Colin, Ty. I've been processing this conversation about God's Ruach. And I found it really hard to orient myself to this ancient view of thinking. Okay, yeah. I think Paul will say God is spirit. And so when we talk about how all reality exists because of God's life and we live within God and God is around us and God is in us and that ancient framework, that mentality, Is that what Paul means when he just says God is spirit?
Oh, that's a great question. Yeah, I think he's naming the thing that I'm trying to name with other words. Okay. So we're talking about the way that God, so to speak, goes outside God's self. To reach out and create and sustain another. And for that thing that is not God to be... To exist. To exist. It has to be sustained. I mean, here go the metaphors. Yeah. Permeated, joined to, aligned with... filled with God's presence in order to even be. And so ruach in Hebrew and pneuma in Greek is the way to talk about that. So when we say God is spirit, it's a creature saying those words. Yes. So by definition, it's a creature who can only say those words with pneuma coming out of their mouth. You know? No. Oh. When I say the words God is spirit, I'm breathing out air that I didn't make for myself.
I received it as a gift. So whatever it would mean to even think or talk about God's transcendent ultimate self that's above and beyond all, I don't know. I'm a creature. I can never know that. But what I can know is, as God has revealed God's self to me, ruach and pneuma are the main biblical words to talk about how a creature exists.
I exist because of God. I exist within God. I can breathe in the Spirit of God. In Him we live and move and have our being, as Paul says. And so everything has life and sustains life because of God. And The shorthand is God is spirit.
Yeah, that's right. Okay. It's like a riddle, really. God is breath. God is wind. God is mind. God is life. All right. Here we are as creatures breathing, breathing raw.
Yeah. We're breathing oxygen. But when we say we're breathing Ruach, you're using that as a metaphor. Sure. To understand something deeper and more true. The metaphysical thing. The metaphysical thing that we only exist, our lives are held together. Maybe even just all molecules are held together by the breath of God. That's right.
Yeah. So there it's the life-sustaining energy. Years ago, we found the metaphor of energy helpful. Yeah. There's more to God than a creature could ever know and comprehend.
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