2:7 before the world. True wisdom, centered in Christ, existed in the heart of God before the world began. “Doth not wisdom cry?…The LORD possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was….For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the LORD. But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death” (Proverbs 8:1, 22-23, 35-36).