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On June 15, 2023 By In Culture, Discipleship, Men, Theology, Wisdom, Women

Why Friends?

“A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; he quarrels against all wise judgment.”

~Proverbs 18.1

We need friends. Whether same-sex comradery or the intimacy of marriage, we need to know and be known by others.

Friendships at every level have faced challenges in every age of history. Twenty-first century Western culture is no different. Though the challenges take different forms, genuine friendships are threatened by a number of cultural factors. The way we understand friendships is changing rapidly. We are more connected with people and less relational. We are friends with hundreds or thousands but with few or any in particular. Technology changes the way we relate. The telegraph gave us information about people thousands of miles away with whom we had no connection and contributed to desensitizing us. (See Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves To Death.) The blessing of air conditioning holed us up in our homes and made it uncomfortable to visit with neighbors. Television became a source of entertainment and information tempted us not to interact with the people in our homes.

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On June 1, 2023 By In Discipleship, Wisdom

Backsliding

“The backslider in heart is filled with his ways and a good man with his.”

~Proverbs 14.14

It’s really no big deal. A lingering fantasy. A cherished secret hidden from your spouse. A lack of hunger for what is good but an increasing appetite for that which God forbids. Decreased vigilance in guarding your heart, allowing your eyes and ears to let the enemies through the gates. It all begins small … dullness, apathy, refusal to fight, and the appeal of the forbidden. “This compromise won’t hurt,” you think to yourself. You deserve a rest from the fight. You have been patient up to this point and still don’t have the life you want. You need relief from the stress.

Apostasy, rejection of the faith, doesn’t begin with one giant leap off a cliff. Solomon describes this person as “one who turns in his heart” or, as it is popularly translated, “the backslider in heart” (Pr 14.14). Turning from the faith begins with the affections of the heart; a man is a “backslider in heart” before he is a backslider in deed. The sequence is well-summarized by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.” The seeds you plant and cultivate in your heart, good or bad, will bear fruit in the future. You will reap what you sow.

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On May 11, 2023 By In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom

Judging Motives

“A plan in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.”

~Proverbs 20.5

“You can’t judge my motives because you don’t know my heart.” You might hear this if you ever make a judgment call on someone’s actions. There is this idea that there is no way we can know someone else’s heart and, therefore, can’t judge their motives. Doesn’t Jeremiah say under the inspiration of the Spirit, “The heart is deceitful above all things and mortally ill; who can know it?” Doesn’t he expect the answer, “No one can know it”? Yes, he expects that answer. None of us relying on our wisdom can discern our own hearts, much less the hearts of others. When the source of our discernment is wisdom is our experience and thinking divorced from God’s revelation, then, no, we can’t understand our own hearts or the hearts of others. We are self-deceived and constantly seek to justify ourselves by rationalizing our motives while impugning the motives of others. So, with this wisdom, we can know nothing true about our hearts or the hearts of others.

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On May 9, 2023 By In Discipleship, Family and Children, Wisdom, Women

Letters To Young Women: Sexual Agency

Dear Young Lady,

King Solomon writes the book of Proverbs to his son, the prince. The king-in-waiting needs wisdom, the ability to see how the world is supposed to be combined with skills to put the world in proper order. This was the original man’s responsibility as well. Unlike the original man, Solomon’s son will have battles with sin that complicate and intensify the challenges that the first man faced.

While much of Solomon’s reign reflected the meaning of his name, “peace,” kings must always be prepared for battle. Because kings such as Solomon’s father, David, were great warriors, you might think that Solomon would spend a great deal of time instructing in the art of war, such as Sun Tzu teaches. Armies from other lands were constantly threatening the country’s integrity, and the king’s responsibility was to lead the armies in protecting the homeland. For example, we might expect battlefield strategies to take down the Philistines as David did. Solomon touches on that here and there, but that is not a significant focus. He prepares his son for battle, but it is a different sort of battle, a battle which, in some respects, is much more strenuous than a fight with a Philistine giant. This battle is with himself as he fights off the power of a woman. Solomon lost this battle. 1Kings 11.1-3 says that Solomon gave his heart in love to many foreign women who turned his heart from Yahweh. Whether he wrote his proverbial instructions before or after he repented in his later life, I do not know. But Solomon was obviously well acquainted with the power of women.

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On May 4, 2023 By In Culture, Discipleship, Men, Wisdom, Women

Generational Warfare

“The glory of young men is their strength, but the majesty of old men is their gray hair.”

~Proverbs 20.29

There are different glories for different bodies. When speaking of the resurrection of our bodies, Paul says that not all flesh is the same. There is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds. There are celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies, each with its own glory. Different glories exist within each of those categories. Sun, moon, and stars all have glory, but each has its particular glory, even down to each star differing from other stars (1Cor 15.39-40). Each body has its particular function and, therefore, its own glory within the great tapestry of God’s creation.

Glory is not only particular to different kinds of bodies that will never be the same but is also true of the same body at different stages of life. There is a glory when you are young and a glory when you are old, as Solomon says in Proverbs 20.29. The young man’s glory is his strength. The older man’s glory is in his gray hair (when found in righteousness; Pr 16.31).

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On April 27, 2023 By In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom

Cross Wisdom

“If God is all-powerful and all-good, how is the existence of evil possible? Either God is not all-powerful and, therefore, can do nothing about the evil, or if God is all-powerful, then he is not all-good.” This has been the “gotcha” question for many unbelievers through the centuries. There are answers to this question, but unbelievers who ask this are rarely satisfied with them. The issue is not so much a “purely theological” or “purely philosophical” dilemma. The issue is personal and moral as much as it is dogmatic. If I were to believe in a god, he must be a god who is all-powerful and uses that power to allow me to live my life without negative consequences. I want a god who frees me from all suffering no matter how I live. Some unbelievers may be more sympathetic to the sufferings of others, angry with the God they don’t believe in because he allows innocent people to suffer horribly. If they were God, they would arrange the events of history much differently.

What is God’s answer to this wisdom? The cross. The all-powerful and all-good God who created and sustains the world took on the flesh of man in the Person of his Son to absorb his own wrath against the sin of man and reconcile the world to himself.

Who in his right mind would believe such a message? This is insanity! An all-powerful, all-good God would find ways to avoid pain for himself and me. The word of the cross is a stumbling block to the postmodernist and foolishness to the modernist.

The rebuttals against the cross reveal not that God exists as an eternal dilemma but that unbelievers are insane. Those who scoff at the message of the cross are reality deniers. God is the Creator and sustainer of reality, and if our thoughts don’t align with his, then we are the ones with backward thinking.

Paul engages this battle of wisdom with the Corinthians in his opening salvo in his first letter. God reveals his wisdom in the cross of Christ. Period. To understand this wisdom, you must submit your mind and heart to God’s wisdom. No worldly wisdom will reason itself to God. The world cannot know God through its own wisdom (1Cor 1.21). We mistakenly believe that if man is educated adequately, he will be convinced. Think about it. No one can actually believe that the existence of logic, the ability to communicate coherently, and love can come from utter randomness. That is insanity. People must be able to understand that. Right? Nope. They refuse to see it, and you can’t convince them if they are committed to worldly wisdom. To people such as this, the cross will never make sense.

“But what about those philosophers who reason their way up to a higher power?” Paul would answer, “Did that higher power die on the cross for you? If not, it is an idol and no god at all.” “What about the scientists who give proof of an intelligent designer?” Well, they might have some good things to say, but is this intelligent designer the one who dies on a cross? If he is not, he is an idol. “What about the religious professional who believes that we are all going to the same god, just climbing up different sides of the mountain?” Well, there are serious conflicts between all of these various stories. The crux of the conflict is that all other religions of the world don’t have a God of the cross. “What about the person who believes in spirituality?” If his spirituality doesn’t include the fact that the Spirit proceeds from a crucified God, then his spirituality is worldly wisdom and futile. He still doesn’t understand the world because he refuses to submit to the wisdom of God.

Why does the cross make sense? Paul answers that question when he says, “It pleased God” to use this “moronic” proclamation of the cross to save those who believe (1Cor 1.21). God determined in himself that the cross is the way the world is put in order and moves toward its purpose. Whether or not the cross satisfies the wisdom of man doesn’t matter. Man doesn’t get a vote. His opinion and pleasure don’t determine the purpose of creation, especially since he is a part of it and has his purpose defined by his Creator.

Therefore, man’s fundamental calling is to submit to the wisdom of God by embracing the message of the cross and then living out this cruciform wisdom. Cruciform wisdom patterns its life according to the self-giving love revealed by God through the cross. Worldly wisdom trains you to look out for yourself, using and stepping on people to exalt yourself. Cruciform teaches you that exaltation comes through humbling yourself and serving others. Worldly wisdom trains you to indulge yourself in the name of liberty. Cruciform wisdom teaches you to deny your impulses for the joy set before you. Worldly wisdom teaches you to take vengeance on others, holding on to bitterness and unforgiveness until your sense of justice is satisfied. Cruciform wisdom teaches you to forgive even as God has forgiven you for Christ’s sake.

The world will think you are crazy, but you are the sane one.

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On April 13, 2023 By In Counseling/Piety, Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom

Faith & Shame

“For we walk by faith and not by sight.” So says the apostle Paul in 2Corinthians 5.7. Paul is, of course, dealing with a particular issue in that context, but this statement is a general principle of the Christian faith that he is applying. Paul is laying down the way Christians must walk in every area of life: by faith. Faith is relying upon what God says and having your thoughts, actions, and affections shaped according to his word. Faith is thinking Christianly.

Learning this way of life is a struggle. We have enemies within and without. Our own sin and our own word of authority fight submission to what God says. We hear the voices of the world echoing the words of the devil, “Has God really said?” God’s authority is challenged in our lives at every turn. We are tempted not to listen to him and exalt our own word or the words of others above his, conforming our lives to those words.

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On April 6, 2023 By In Discipleship, Wisdom

Maundy Thursday: Wisdom’s Love

“Everybody wants to save the Earth, but nobody wants to help mom do the dishes.” This quip from P. J. O’Rourke captures well how many of us with big visions don’t like to do the menial things thinking that they are beneath us and/or they don’t contribute to the grand vision that we have for ourselves. We are going to do big things. Big things, I tell you! We can’t waste our time piddling with trifles such as doing the dishes or taking out the trash. We will build and rule an empire, whether by slaying all the giants in social media discussions or conquering the business world. Whatever domain we plan to establish, the menial tasks don’t fit into our strategy.

There is nothing wrong with having big visions for our future. Jesus himself had a big vision, we might say, for ruling the entire created order. In John 17, he prays that the Father would fulfill his hope for this rule when he prays that his Father would glorify him. When riding into Jerusalem days before his death to the acclamations of the crowd that he was the King of Israel, Jesus accepted this title in the present and as his destiny. The king of Israel, the son of David, is a new Adam, the one to whom dominion of the created order is given. He will not be a regional king over a little plot of land and the ethnic boundaries of the Jews. Jesus shall reign where ‘ere the sun does his successive journeys run.

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On March 9, 2023 By In Counseling/Piety, Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom

Unlocking Potential

“An abundance of food is in the fallow ground of the poor, but it is swept away through injustice.”

~Proverbs 13.23

If I gave you a treasure map and told you, “X marks the spot. There is a 100% guarantee that the treasure is there. Go, find it, and it is yours.” You might ask what tools you will need to retrieve the treasure, but it is doubtful that you would turn down such an opportunity. The potential to be wealthy is a good motivator.

The truth is you are promised riches and a way to retrieve them. Not only that but you have also been told what tools you need. The only question is, How badly do you want to be wealthy?

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On February 23, 2023 By In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom

Sowing & Reaping

“The crown of the wise ones is wealth; the folly of fools is folly.”

~ Proverbs 14.24

Wealth is not always measured on a balance sheet. There are many forms of wealth, something that George Bailey learned in his odyssey in the movie It’s A Wonderful Life. Wisdom, righteousness, peace, integrity, children, grandchildren, and many other riches make a man wealthy. Wealth can be measured in possessions, but that is not the only form wealth takes. Whatever form wealth takes, one principle is consistent concerning the true wealth to which Solomon’s son must aspire: wealth is the crown of wisdom.

Crowns are conspicuous in Proverbs. Gray hair (16.31), a man’s excellent wife (12.4), and grandchildren (17.6) are all crowns. Crowns are mentioned many times throughout Scripture. We, with Paul, are striving for an imperishable crown (1Cor 9.25), the crown of life (Jms 1.12; Rev 2.10), which is a crown of righteousness that will be given to all who love the appearing of Christ Jesus (2Tm 4.8). Faithful elders in the church will be rewarded with an unfading crown of glory (1Pt 5.4).

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