When I graduated from high school and was preparing to head off to Bible college, the pastor emeritus at our church, a wonderful retired pastor who helped out at our church, came up to me to offer his blessing on my coming education as well as a bit of advice.
“Be careful,” he said, “too much learning can be a dangerous thing. Don’t let your faith get educated out of you. Don’t let Bible College and Seminary turn you into an unbeliever.”
I must admit that I was a bit taken aback by this advice. Here I was, headed off to school to learn about the Bible and God’s word. Why in the world would it damage my faith to learn more about it?
After years of Bible Study, I must say that I am of two minds about this advice I was given. On the one hand I still find it confusing. Why should we be scared to learn about our faith? I guess I worry about simplistic faith that isn’t able to be challenged. I found my beliefs about God being confronted in school. Some of them were changed by this process, others became all the stronger because of the questions they faced. I find that it is healthy to question our faith. A pastor friend of mine talks of faith and faithfulness as not being about never questioning your faith, but rather living faithful to God even when you do question.
So there is the one side of me, thinking that the pastor emeritus was way off base with his warning and advice. But then, at the same time, I also understand what he was coming from as well. I’ve seen Christians who were sure and strong in their faith turn from it when questions are brought before them. And I recognize the danger of too much knowledge.
So, if there is such thing as too much knowledge, can there be such a thing as too much wisdom? Today’s scripture gives us an interesting answer to this question. One which we do well to take heed to.
I. Wise or Clever
Today’s scripture spends a fair amount of time talking about wisdom. Now, I have to admit, I like it when the Bible talks about wisdom. You see, I’ve often been told by people that I have a wisdom beyond my age. Not only that, but both my parents and I spent a lot of money working me through college and seminary so that I would have a lot of knowledge. So I think it’s good to know things. I would go so far as to say that I’m fairly proud that I know things. So, therefore, it’s good to see wisdom described as something of such importance in the Bible. It’s especially there in the book of Proverbs, where we are told how important wisdom is. We even have places in the Bible, like the beginning of the gospel of John, where Jesus is equated with wisdom. You see, there is this great New Testament word, Logos, which means, well “word”. And it is the word that in the Old Testament refers to wisdom. So, wisdom and knowledge are important to God. God doesn’t want his followers to be naïve. And, like I said, I like it when the Bible talks about wisdom.
But then I come to James and my expectation is turned on its head. You see, James sees a lot of Christians going around thinking they are wise when they are not. James sees two different kinds of wisdom in the world. There is heavenly wisdom and there is earthly, unspiritual wisdom. And he separates these two wisdoms by their fruits.
James tells us that wisdom that is prideful and envious and ambitious is not of God, it is of the devil. He then tells us that true wisdom from God is pure, peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Wow, that’s quite the tall order. And furthermore, what does any of that have to do with wisdom and knowledge?
Well, I like one way I have heard it put: this passage is about the difference between being clever and being wise. Now we’ve all met someone who is a bit too clever for their own good. And there are different ways this shows itself. One way is a friend I had in college who, after much thought, decided that he didn’t believe in God anymore. God just didn’t make sense to his rational mind and he ended up rejecting God completely. It was a sad thing to watch happen. Perhaps this is what my pastor friend in high school was afraid of and what he was trying to warn me against. But there are other ways that someone’s own cleverness can be their downfall. James looks at this dangerous cleverness as being something that comes not from heaven but, instead, from within yourself. It is self-reliant and self- serving. Cleverness tries to think its way out of every problem all on its own. Cleverness is about relying on your own skills instead of relying and trusting in God. And for James, there is no place for cleverness in godly life. If you are trying to juggle your life and keep everything in the air; if you feel that you are constantly fighting against the world and just barely able to keep yourself going; if you think that your own strengths are going to keep you going, then you are in danger of falling into this trap of cleverness. It is a dangerous trap. And James makes it clear that it is a trap set by the devil himself. He wants us to rely on ourselves. He wants us to think that we can work through our problems on our own. He wants us to believe that I am the only one I can rely on. For as long as you are caught up in your own cleverness, you are going to ignore the great commandment; you are going to avoid the royal law.
This concept is a hard one for me… truly believing that wisdom and cleverness are not the same. I want to think that I am clever, that I am smart, and that that makes me better than others. It is my own prejudice. But James describes true wisdom that is of God in a different light. I’ve read through the list already, but it is worth reading through again. Wisdom that is from God is pure, peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.
After listing through all these attributes of Godly wisdom, James goes back and focuses specifically on one of them, peace. Then, at the beginning of chapter 4, James talks about the opposite of this concept of peace, talking about people fighting and quarreling among themselves.
II. Peace-loving
I find it interesting that peace seems to be such an important part of heavenly wisdom. This wisdom that is from God is not so much about knowledge. Rather it is about peace. Now when we think about peace we usually think of it in relation to war. But sometimes we can learn to better understand a concept when we look at what other cultures have to say about it.
In James’ own culture, peace was (and still is) referred to as shalom. This is the Jewish concept of peace. Interestingly enough, the Arabic derivative of this word, meaning the same thing has been taken by Muslims as their greeting to each other, salaam. The people of Israel wish each other shalom and Muslims wish each other salaam and it seems that neither group is getting any closer to true peace. Of course, if I were to say, “Peace be with you,” I also am not any closer to truly finding peace. We see people throughout the world wishing for peace and longing for it and praying for it, but, unfortunately, I fear, what we don’t see is people living it.
T. Z. Koo, an expert in Chinese Christianity who went to Seminaries to teach Christians about the Christian culture in China, liked to talk about how in the Chinese language there are three different characters, or words, that all meant peace. The Chinese written language is quite amazing because the characters that represent words are also pictures, and the shape that the picture represents helps you to understand what the word is about. And he talked about three Chinese words for peace. None of them had anything to do with warfare or lack of warfare… they were about something else entirely.
The first of these, an, talks about peace within the home. It is actually represented by a picture of a woman sitting in a house. Peace happens when families are well together. When there is trouble in a family peace is fleeting. If we do not have peace in our homes we will not have peace in the rest of the world. The second of these, ping, means equality amongst people. Peace comes when people are treated as equals. I find it telling that this is a center of peace because this idea of equality is something that James takes so very seriously throughout this book of the Bible. James finds it very important that in the church we treat people equally, no matter what their place in the world. The third of Chinese character for peace is ho. The picture combines two other pictures: the picture of a mouth and the picture of grain. Peace comes when everyone has enough to eat.
Looking at the Chinese definitions of peace totally changes my understanding of what it means to be a peacemaker. Being a peacemaker is about providing for those around you. It is about doing your part to be sure that everyone has enough to eat. It is about treating people as equals. And it is about fostering peace in your own home. No wonder James finds peace to be so very central to the concept of wisdom. No wonder James feels that wisdom cannot be of God if it is not coming from a place of peace.
III. Motives
In the end, I think my problem in understanding wisdom has been to think that it has to do with knowledge at all. When we look closely at the Bible and what it has to say about wisdom, we discover that it has nothing to do with knowledge and rather it is all about motives. When your motives are self-centered and selfish, when they are full of quarreling and fighting, then you are not really acting in wisdom. You may be fairly clever, but this doesn’t really get you anywhere in God’s eyes. But then, when you are motivated by the things of God, when you are motivated by peace and love for your neighbor, then you discover a wisdom that no amount of schooling could ever teach you.
And so, I have to go back to the fact that I like it when the Bible talks about wisdom. It isn’t saying that learning is good, it isn’t saying that it is bad, either. It isn’t talking about learning or knowledge at all. What it is talking about is the fact that we are all called and equipped to be wise. And this wisdom happens when we put the things of God first. It happens when we learn to live lives of peace. It happens when we love our neighbors. It happens when we learn to focus on the needs of others instead of just focusing on our own desires. Are you ready to live the life of wisdom? I know I am. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment