Blog Two, August 15, 2025
“Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.
Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.” (Proverbs 6:6-11 ESV)
Deborah Gordon, scientist and ant expert, in her book “Ant Encounters”, wrote “How can ants get anything done when no one is in charge? Whoever wrote Proverbs 6:6 put it this way: ‘Look to the ant, thou sluggard – consider her ways and be wise. Without chief, overseer, or ruler, she gathers the harvest in the summer to eat in the winter.’ The history of our understanding of ant behavior is the history of our changing views of how organizations work.”
Dr. Gordon is not the first secular scientist to marvel at the wisdom of King Solomon two millennia after his treatise on spiritual wisdom appeared. The warning to sluggards is not the exception but the norm – scientific truth appears in Scripture long before man “discovers” it. Eons passed where man considered the queen ant the ruler of the colony (she was called the queen, after all). She was twice as large as the other colony members, she was the mother of multiple generations living as one collective, and all nest activity was centered around her protection, maintenance, and well-being.
Yet, Solomon was right. In the ant assembly, no one is in charge. This remarkable conclave, called by William Morton Wheeler a superorganism acts as an intricate functional unit. There is no hierarchy in an ant nest – only a caste system, each member knowing its role and working in concert for the common good. Deborah Gordon’s question is a good one. Just how does that work? Humans require careful management for even basic functions.
The written Scriptures proclaimed “scientific facts” such as in Proverbs 6:6 long before humans caught up in their understanding. It is helpful to point out that when God granted Solomon wisdom, it included “scientific” knowledge (botany, zoology, etc.) as well as hymns, proverbs, and spiritual nuggets of truth (1 Kings 4:29-34). This is good news for scientists and scholars in two and possibly three ways.
First, all knowledge acquisition is good and a worthwhile pursuit. Like Solomon, we attain the wisdom of God in part by learning in every field – science, math, business, languages, humanities, history, you name it! Second, knowledge is attainable in a form we can access. Information is tangible so our senses can detect it and orderly so we can organize and measure it; knowledge abides in patterns where we can predict both change and absolute.
Thirdly, in whatever field we pursue knowledge and acquire expertise, the learner gains wisdom most effectively when he begins with Scripture to study a system, allowing biblical truth to guide into natural law. When our science flows from the truth of Scripture and is not treated as a separate and parallel hallway of truth, we discover that scientific inquiry moves from nature worship to spiritual joy. The pursuit of science should add dignity and purpose to our lives and to those around us; this only occurs with complete and genuine inquiry.
Benjamin Franklin once quipped “None preach like the ant, and she does not say anything.” The Bible trumpets this reality in Proverbs 6. Recognizing the priority of the divine word over man’s finite word is the first and most important component of learning, as Solomon shows us.
D.E.
References
Deborah M. Gordon, Ant Encounters: Interaction Networks and Colony Behavior, Princeton University Press, 2010, ISBN # 978-0-691-13879-4
William M. Wheeler, Social Life Among the Insects, 1923, Harcourt, Brace, & World, reprinted in 1968, Johnson Reprint Corp.