Wisdom and Pride

There is, according to Ezekiel 28.17, no intersection between wisdom and pride. You cannot have both. The passage is speaking of the King of Tyre. It says of him, you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. In other words, your desire to see yourself lifted up affected your wisdom, and that desire won out. Therefore, what wisdom you had was null and void.

This is why it is so important to be on guard against pride. God gives us wisdom, but if we allow our pride to get in the way, the gift that he gives us will be of no help in understanding how to live in the world in a God-honoring way.

As Jonathan Edwards put it: Remember that pride is the worst viper that is in the heart, the greatest disturber of the soul's peace and sweet communion with Christ; it was the first sin that ever was, and lies lowest in the foundation of Satan's whole building, and is the most difficultly rooted out, and is the most hidden, secret and deceitful of all lusts, and often creeps in, insensibly, into the midst of religion and sometimes under the disguise of humility.

• Jonathan Edwards, To Deborah Hatheway, Letters and Personal Writings (Works of Jonathan Edwards Online Vol. 16) , Ed. George S. Claghorn