Maybe we Need a Different Kind of Wisdom

As Christians the Gospel and God’s word shapes our worldview. It provides perspective on purpose, morality and daily life – or at least that is the hope, right? With that there is bound to moments in which we butt heads with shifting cultural perspective, whether it is a moral, philosophical, theological or political difference. So, the question is, how do we respond to a culture that seems to undermine some of our most deeply held beliefs?

In a culture that has lost the art of civil discourse it is important not only to pursue and proclaim truth and sound reasoning but also to know how God desires us to express that knowledge. If you turn to most news channels it seems that truth is mostly dependent on whoever can shout the loudest. To be clear, this isn’t just “secular” culture that has a problem with sharing differing viewpoints, this shouting match, name calling and downright nastiness is just as prevalent from and among Christians.

Unfortunately you don’t have to go very far to see negative examples of how Christians express their different perspectives, either with one another arguing about theology or with non-believers often arguing about morality. The comment section below a YouTube video or a politically divisive article is truly one of the dark, scary corners of the internet. The kind of volatile, hate-filled, racist, derogatory, condescending, vulgar speech that I consistently see comes from both Christian and non-Christian alike is depressing and it is truly indistinguishable.

Our inability to have dialogue and express different opinions is damaging to our ability to make the Gospel tangibly known. Not because the Gospel is accepting of all viewpoints, but because at its core the main goal of its proclamation isn’t to be right or justified, instead it is to offer hope and redemption to those who are irredeemably wrong. If God’s main goal was to be “right” He would have never come down humbly and taken on flesh as the person of Jesus Christ because He certainly didn’t owe that to any of us. Why did God practice humility, reconciliation and redemption at such cost when we were the ones undeniably in the wrong and He is the only example of true perfection? The overarching theme of scripture would tell us that God cares about the redemption of a broken or “wrong” creation and humanity even at His own expense. Does the gospel belittle or contradict truth? No it expresses the most beautiful truth, but it is expressed in the hopes of redemption and reconciliation of those who are woefully in the wrong. Do we express truth with that same objective in mind? 

This makes me wonder, have we as Christians lost an understanding of the Biblical expression of wisdom? I recently preached a sermon on a different kind of wisdom that’s described in the pages of Scripture and it is surprisingly more defined than our standard definition of the word.

A quick Google search would tell you that wisdom is “the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment; the quality of being wise.

Which, isn’t it always a cop-out when they use the root word in the definition? But whatever…

I think we often take this simple definition as our understanding of wisdom. With that said, our understanding, good judgment and ultimately “being right” has been given the highest priority and we have lost a crucial component – the way in which that “wisdom” is supposed to be expressed. A knowledge of truth is important, it is critical – if we are not pursuing truth then we are living in falsehood or a delusion. However the Bible puts a ton of emphasis on how that truth, knowledge or understanding is expressed – and that is called “wisdom.” We see a great example of this in James chapter 3:13-18.

James writes…

^“Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.”

There are 3 main differences that I see come out of this passages that point to a vastly different kind of wisdom than I think many of us display.

Biblical wisdom comes from a posture of humility.

The first thing that James connects with wisdom is a type of posture. In other the words our disposition toward others. For most of us being right, or justifying our position is one of the most common ways we seek validation. So often we don’t actually seek truth but rather we seek to justify or validate our already held beliefs. So we either look to folks that will agree with us or we fervently get others to concede to our point, not out of love but a pursuit of being right, personal validation – this is not wisdom. James says there is a level of humility in Biblical wisdom, because on the opposite side of the coin pride makes it difficult to seek truth and true understanding because pride cares first and foremost about ourselves and our own validation. So when pride creeps in we will fight tooth and nail in solidifying our point of view (right or wrong) without the slightest consideration that we may be in the wrong.

There is a scene in Luke's Gospel where Jesus is tested by a lawyer. Within their dialogue Jesus confirms the man’s interpretation of the law through the greatest commandment (the Shema), "to love God with all your heart, minds, soul and strength" and "to love your neighbor as yourself." After the lawyer hears Jesus’ agreement, he then asks “who’s my neighbor?” And the Luke says something interesting about the questions he asks. – the text says, “wanting to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

This Lawyer already had a preconceived notion about who his neighbor was and it probably didn’t include the type of people that Jesus was thinking of (Samaritans, tax-collectors, prostitutes, ceremonially unclean, etc.) The man wasn’t actually interested in learning from Jesus – he just wanted to use Jesus to reinforce his already held beliefs. When we seek understanding without a posture of humility, chances are we will miss true understanding in our pursuit to justify our own perspectives. 

How often do we use others as means to reinforce our current viewpoint? How often do we do that with Jesus or God’s word projecting our bias on to it, instead of seeking what it truly says? While it is difficult to truly remove our bias, it is only remotely possible when we seek truth in a posture of humility. 

Biblical wisdom is relational and concerned with others.

This means that the “being right is not enough” to constitute as Biblical wisdom. It actually goes beyond that. James speaks about a type of wisdom that both seeks truth and understanding but it is also wholly relational. He describes characteristics that we normally don’t connect with wisdom – peace-loving, considerate, submissive, and full of mercy and good fruit. The addition of these attributes go beyond objective decision making, or proper understanding and application of knowledge. When James talks about wisdom it is clearly in the context of relationship. Why is this important? Because our aim of expressing wisdom is for the sake of others – not for the validation of our viewpoint or propping up our image. If we take relationship out of the equation then our only objective becomes proving our perspective as superior – and more often than not the folks we are trying to prove that to are dragged through the conversational mud. It must not be about self or even truth if it is truth in a vacuum, instead James is clear that our expression of truth must be concerned with others.

Biblical wisdom seeks peace (Shalom).

Peace and wisdom, don’t seem all that connected to us. I mean you could look at it as – you live a wise life, keep to yourself and you will have a nice quiet peaceful life. But if we follow the rest of James’ description of peace this – isn’t a mind your own business kind of peace it is a kind of peace we seek – reconciliation – and in the context of his Jewish audience they would have known it as “Shalom” which was the Hebrew word for peace, but their idea of peace encompassed more than our what we think of which is just a lack of conflict… Shalom can mean completeness, wholeness, health, peace, welfare, safety, soundness, tranquility, prosperity, perfectness, fullness, rest, harmony, and the absence of agitation or discord.

This isn’t your run of the mill kind of peace. This is some intense peace, some pretty nice sounding peace too, right? This was a very holistic, all-encompassing kind of peace. Where there isn’t just a lack of relational conflict but all things are right.

The Hebrew people were seeking the kind of peace from their origin story – they wanted the Shalom of the garden in Genesis 1 & 2. That was their picture of Shalom – God created the world. It was good. We had right relationship with creation, we had loving relationship with each other and most importantly with our creator God. There was no shame or guilt, there was no need for us to try and seek satisfaction in so many other things. It was all there. Even if it was brief there was Shalom, because God was with us.

As Christians we not only have a glimpse of Shalom in the Garden but in the new heavens and new earth. In the book of Revelation John describes his vision about the kind of world that God is going to renew and it is a doosey. No more sadness, no more pain, and no more death – We will live in the uninhibited presence of God. True bliss, true Shalom. When we are reconciled back to God his very presence and reign in our lives produces glimpses of Shalom therefore God’s Kingdom (God's rule and reign) seeks Shalom.

Godly wisdom seeks His Kingdom here on earth. True wisdom leads us to shalom which is an expression of God being with us – His Kingdom here on earth. We will have to wait until His return for there to be pure peace on earth. However, even in the here and now we can live lives that seek peace for ourselves, for our families, our neighbors, our larger community. That is what wisdom in God’s Kingdom looks like – it is humble, it is relational and it seeks peace not discord.

So the next time you have a discussion, express a different point of view, defend your faith or click send on that internet comment box. Ask yourself this, "is my expression of "truth" an expression of Biblical wisdom?" Filter it through James’ perspective on wisdom…

Is it coming from a posture of humility?

Is it concerned with others?

Does it seek peace?

I think as Christians we need to abandon our overly simplistic perspective of wisdom and learn to filter our expression of wisdom through the words of James. If we did this I believe we would see much more fruit in our conversations with an ever-shifting culture that often differs vastly from our beliefs, perspective and understanding of truth.