I want to suggest that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, but that it is not the end of wisdom. To me, the end of wisdom (in other words, wisdom’s goal and aim) is not to fear God, but to fear what God fears. 

Let me put it this way. For a toddler, the beginning of wisdom is to fear daddy and mommy. Knowledge of their love, and the natural love that comes up in us in response, is good and wholesome. But wisdom, the constructive side of the “knowledge of good and evil,” consists in more than the knowledge of love (Col. 1:3-4, 8-10). Wisdom is the ability to discern what is edifying from what is harmful, what is safe from what is dangerous. 

There is important knowledge to be had about what is safe and dangerous, and not all of it is best to gather from direct experience. Some such knowledge comes from those who have been around before you and know more. It is certainly possible to find out some quick facts about the dangers of electric sockets by putting a paper clip into one. But when you’re too young to understand concepts like electricity and electrocution, the beginning of wisdom is the fear that drenches you when mommy suddenly shouts at you, leaps mightily over the coffee table, and slaps your hand away, saying, all red- faced and intimidating, “Never, never, NEVER DO THAT!!” 

Running into the street, climbing up high on the bookshelves, and poking your sister with a rat tailed comb all get something of an equivalent reaction from both mommy and daddy. Exactly why these particular actions should call forth such ferocious responses remains a mystery for a long time–a mystery that preys on your mind, so that mommy will sometimes see you meditating on it in a quiet moment. “Naughty, no, no no!” you’ll repeat in a kind of solo role play, lowering your brow, pursing your lips just so, and lightly slapping your own wrist. You’re trying to fathom the meaning of this sudden, inexplicable transformation that comes over those great parental powers who are generally so congenial to you. 

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. God is our father, our mother, the father of our fathers and the mother of our mothers. It may be a major positive step to fear God’s disapproval over things that may seem innocuous to us in our biological adulthood and spiritual toddlerhood. But beyond the first step in wisdom is the maturing of wisdom. I come to understand later why God disapproves of many things–and I see that God loves me and wants to protect me from harming myself, harming others, and harming my environment. The end of wisdom is that I come to join God in hating what is harmful, not because I know I will “get in trouble” with God if I do the harmful, but because I learn two things: 

first, in accepting God’s love, I grow to love my own well-being and the well-being of all that God has made; 

second, I grow to discern what kinds of behaviors and attitudes tear down that well-being, and what kinds of behaviors and attitudes build it up. 

You can see this pattern in Col. 1:7-10: 

Epaphras . . . has made known to us your love in the Spirit. And so, from the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, to lead a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. 

The Colossians have love, the first and foundational part of wisdom; Paul prays that they may be completed in knowledge of what is best, the second part, so that they may be fully equipped for God’s effective service.

Through wisdom I have come to understand that my mother does not have two opposite sides, and that she did not have a habit of suddenly turning against me. For the very reason that she loved her children, she feared for my safety and the safety of my sister, therefore she rescued me from myself and rescued my sister from me. The beginning of wisdom was to fear her reaction; the end of wisdom is to fear what she fears. 

Beloved, we are already God’s children; it does not yet appear what we will be, but we do know that when God appears we will be like God, for we will see God as God truly is. (1 Jn 3:2) 

God is love, and the one who lives in love lives in God. It is in this that love comes to maturity in us, and thus we have confidence for the day of judgment. For as God is, so are we in the world. There is no fear in love, but mature love takes the place of fear. For fear is about punishment, and the person who fears has not yet matured in love. We love because God loved us first. (1 Jn 4:16-19)