(1) Walking with God (vv. 1-9). Chapters 2–4 all begin with an admonition to listen to God’s words and take them to heart (3:1-12; 4:1-9), because that’s the only way we can walk with God and live skillfully. Eight imperatives in this paragraph reveal our responsibilities toward God’s truth: receive (accept) God’s words and hide them (store them up) in our minds and hearts; incline the ear and apply the heart; cry after knowledge and lift up the voice for understanding; seek for wisdom and search after it. If you want wisdom, you must listen to God attentively (Matt. 13:9), obey Him humbly (John 14:15), ask Him sincerely (James 1:5), and seek Him diligently (Isa. 55:6-7), the way a miner searches for silver and gold.

Obtaining spiritual wisdom isn’t a once-a-week hobby; it is the daily discipline of a lifetime. But in this age of microwave ovens, fast foods, digests, and numerous “made easy” books, many people are out of the habit of daily investing time and energy in digging deep into Scripture and learning wisdom from the Lord. Thanks to television, their attention span is brief; thanks to religious entertainment that passes for worship, their spiritual appetite is feeble and spiritual knowledge isn’t “pleasant to [their] soul” (Prov. 2:10 nkjv). It’s no wonder fewer and fewer people “take time to be holy” and more and more people fall prey to the enemies that lurk along the way.

If we do our part, God will keep His promise and protect us from the enemy (vv. 7-8): “He holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones” (niv). “Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You” (Ps. 119:11 nkjv).

People are willing to work diligently in their jobs because they know they’ll earn a paycheck, but what about applying themselves diligently to God’s Word in order to gain spiritual riches that are more valuable than gold and silver and jewels, riches that will last forever? (See 2:4; 3:13-15; 8:10-21; 16:16.) There’s a price to pay if we would gain spiritual wisdom, but there’s an even greater price to pay if we don’t gain it. We must walk with God through the study of His Word.