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On September 30, 2021 By In Theology, Wisdom

The Enemy Within

Throughout the book of Proverbs, Solomon warns his son of the enemies he will face. A few of those enemies are outside of his son. There is the perverted Band of Brothers who appear in chapter 1 and are alluded to elsewhere. They lie, steal, and pillage. They will play on the son’s God-given need to join with other men in a comradery of mission to take dominion. But their commitment to a distorted dominion makes them an enemy to be avoided. Then there is Harlot Folly who plays on the need of the son for a helper. She seduces with short-term benefits without long-term commitment and will only help him in dwelling in the abode of the dead, not in his mission to build God’s house. Her seduction is to be avoided for she is an adversary.

But there is another enemy with much more influence over our lives than the perverted Band of Brothers or Harlot Folly. This enemy resides within each of us and poses the greatest threat to our well-being. This enemy is our own hearts.

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On September 23, 2021 By In Theology, Wisdom

Unafraid of Immortal Wounds

What, if anything, keeps you awake at night? Are there any anxieties or fears that roll through your mind that keep you from sleeping? This is a common question in the business world, especially for the owners or leaders that feel the stress to keep the business going knowing that not only do their livelihoods but others’ livelihoods are dependent on them. But you don’t have to be a boss or owner of a company to experience stresses that create insomnia. Any fear of loss that stems from a real or perceived lack of power to control people and situations can create stress that will rob sleep from you. You can worry about family finances, personal health, the health of family members, loss of job, loss of relationships because of tensions, and a myriad of other things.

In the end, what keeps us up at night is the lack of security. We feel threatened with some sort of loss accompanied by the powerlessness to change things. We sleep well when we feel secure.

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On September 9, 2021 By In Theology, Wisdom

Wisdom: Guardian Against Lies

Toward the end of the long sentence that is Proverbs 2, Solomon promises his son that the way of wisdom is safe, guarding and preserving him from the perverted speech of both men (2.12-15) and women (2.16-19). God calls the son to a mission of dominion, a mission that requires that he become a brother in arms with other men in fulfilling our masculine duty as well as finding a personal helper, a woman who will aid him in building a house, being fruitful and multiplying. There are fallen men and women out there who submit to the father of lies and because they bind themselves to him, they assume his nature as liars. They make false promises concerning the mission. Their lies promise you that you can defy reality–the way God made and sustains the world–and, in the end, find the same rest, peace, and security that God promises.

Both men and women use perverted speech, lies, to try to seduce the son. The men want the son to join their marauding gang (cf. Pr 1.10-19) and walk in evil paths, obtaining glory through wicked means. The woman entices him that he can have sex without consequences or commitment; no marriage, no children, only fun. Both are lies that lead to death.

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On September 2, 2021 By In Culture, Theology, Wisdom

Liberty of Conscience

“Sphere sovereignty” is one characteristic of Kuyper’s theology that is emphasized by his heirs. Sphere sovereignty, the teaching that God has delegated authority to certain spheres with limitations, is the outworking and further clarification of the Reformation’s recovery of biblical principles concerning proper authority. The spheres emphasized are usually three: family, church, and government. But there is another (among others) that needs to be remembered: the individual. We, in America, have been plagued with an individualism that has distorted this sphere and, therefore, the other spheres needed to be emphasized. But the tides are turning in Western Culture, and we need to remind ourselves just what good thing was being perverted.

Individualism is a perversion of individual sphere sovereignty, the doctrine that the individual has God-given authority over himself before God and will be held personally accountable to God in the judgment. Taken to the extreme, men begin to do what is right in their own eyes thinking that they are accountable to no other mediate authorities in the world. No one can tell them what to do. This is a distortion of biblical truth, but it is a biblical truth that is being distorted.

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On August 26, 2021 By In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom

Growing In The Light Of Wisdom

The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day. The way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know over what they stumble. ~Proverbs 4.18-19

Solomon incentivizes his son to accept his words and walk in the path of wisdom with the promise of ever-growing light. Light is a great blessing in everyday life, but why would ever-growing light be an incentive to walk in the path of wisdom? Solomon’s promise is rooted in deep themes of Scripture that begin with the story of light and darkness in the opening scenes of history.

There was a time when there was nothing outside of God himself. You and I can’t imagine “nothing,” for when we try to imagine “nothing” we are imagining something. Nothing means that there wasn’t even darkness. On the opening day of history, God created heaven and earth and, with it, darkness (cf. Isa 45.7). Darkness was not evil in the broad sense of affliction or trouble or in the narrow sense of being sinful. In fact, God judges all of his creation “good” at the end of the week. Darkness was a part of each day and was, therefore, good with the rest of creation.

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On August 25, 2021 By In Wisdom

Moving Beyond our Sinful Past

Wisdom is a gift from a generous God (Prov. 2:6-9; James 3:17-18). It comes from the hard work of decision-making in the context of a healthy community. Decision-making under such a rubric becomes a central duty of godly saints. We become wiser with age when age allows us to think wisely about our past. But when we cease to reflect on the goodness of God throughout our lives, we fail to grow in wisdom. Gray hair is a crown of splendor only to those who walk in righteousness (Prov. 16:31).

Consider, for instance, how many struggle with past decisions and wonder at times what would have happened if they had taken a different route. “What if I had sought better friends?” “What if I had loved my children more?” “What if I had spent more time with my family?” “Why did I wait so long?”

The entire process of contemplation becomes endless and easily results in a fruitless pursuit of shame and guilt. When a man wonders, “If I had not pursued this immoral lifestyle for most of my youth, I would be in a better place right now,” he is acting like the wrong kind of storyteller. Good Christian storytellers remember their sinful pasts in light of the forgiveness they have received. The more they grow in wisdom, the greater redemptive re-tellers they become. They look at their past as painful lessons of rebellion, but they cannot dwell on them lest they become tedious tellers of time. The bodies of the Israelites serve as testaments that the road to the Promised Land is filled with those whose stories dwelt in the abundance of Egypt and wished to return and stories of the promise of a new land under a true Lord.

When Christians become paralyzed by their past, they are not submitting to the God of the future. Every poor decision demands not a penance, but a repentant heart that can see–in hope–a new trajectory being formed. That new trajectory is filled with opportunities for new decision-making exercises. In fact, new decisions made in the context of the good and true allow saints to view past sins anew.

When God removes our sins as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103), he is granting us the gift of living in the place of blessing without being overwhelmed by the place of sin; they can now live in light of the new life instead of allowing the old to control their actions. God gifts us with the mind to move forward in faith knowing that our new story emerges in a land flowing with milk and honey despite our long sojourn in the wilderness.

I am not arguing that heinous sins don’t linger in the imagination, but I am arguing that heinous sins should not control the imagination. Christians are, after all, people of wisdom. They fill their lives with the nurture of heaven and that keeps them grounded on earthly duties. For this reason, the best decisions we make stem from a heart filled with gratitude to a God who has forgiven us and accepts us in the Beloved. We move forward as creatures bound by a future-making God who decrees all for his glory and pleasure. 

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On August 12, 2021 By In Discipleship, Wisdom

The Wealth of Wisdom

“Honor Yahweh with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.” (Proverbs 3.9-10)

“Do you want your needs met? Do you want to be wealthy? God is calling you to plant a seed of faith of one hundred, two hundred, or one thousand dollars in this ministry. The return you receive depends on how many seeds you plant.” If we haven’t heard it directly, many of us are familiar with the message of the prosperity gospel hucksters who siphon off money from the desperate and gullible. We dismiss these charlatans with disdainful laughter because we know that God and his world are not a divinely rigged slot machine that produces a fortune every time the handle is pulled or the button pushed. (Sorry, I’m a little unfamiliar with slot machines.)

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On August 5, 2021 By In Discipleship, Wisdom

The Name of Wisdom

Jezebel. Adolf Hitler. Paul. Mao Zedong. Augustine. Fidel Castro. Martin Luther. Joseph Stalin. John Calvin. Donald Trump. Joe Biden. Names provoke various reactions, from respect to revulsion. They have this effect because they are not benign tags to distinguish one person from another but carry with them the revealed character of the person.

Should we care about our name? Should we be concerned about what people think when they hear our name? Joan Jett says she doesn’t care about her bad reputation, but Solomon says that we should care about ours. “A name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor (that is, a good reputation) is better than silver or gold” (Pr 22.1). There is something else in Proverbs that is worth more than silver, gold, and precious jewels: Wisdom (cf. Pr 3.14-15; 8.10, 11, 19; 16.16). Solomon is making a connection. Your name ought to be “Wisdom.” When people speak your name, the speaker and those listening ought to think, “well-ordered life, integrity, faithful, diligent worker, a reflection of God’s character, fears God.”

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On July 29, 2021 By In Discipleship, Family and Children, Wisdom

Adorning Wisdom

Instruction, education, or discipleship can sometimes be reduced to the transference of ideas from one brain to another. The young person who needs to learn needs to read a book, listen to a lecture, and follow commands, we think. Teaching of this sort is indispensable to learning wisdom. God, after all, gave us a book of books that we are to hear and read to know him, to understand his works and his will.

If left to mere talk, the communication of information, our teaching is truncated and insufficient. The goal of education in wisdom is about formation not merely information. Teachers are looking to capture the disciple’s heart, shaping his desires as well as his ideas, forming habits as well as inculcating facts.

Desire is key. What you desire you will pursue, love, and cherish.

What do we desire? We desire that which we believe is beautiful. What is beautiful is the highest good. What we consider beautiful draws us to itself promising us, with and without words, the good life.

Solomon wants his son to desire wisdom’s beauty. So, in Proverbs 3.13-18 he paints a portrait of wisdom’s beauty for his son. This little section might even be considered a hymn of praise of Wisdom. There are no commands in the section. There is only the portrait of the beauty of Wisdom with the promise of the blessedness for those who lay hold on her. There are commands, exhortations, and admonitions elsewhere in Proverbs. All of those are needed, but they need to be conjoined with why we are doing all of these things: the pursuit of the beautiful.

Because of the foolishness that is bound up in our hearts from conception (Pr 22.15), our visions of beauty are distorted. We will tend toward the superficial, vaporous beauty of Harlot Folly. We need our vision reordered to see the beauty of Wisdom; the beauty of a well-ordered life that lives at peace with God, others, and the non-human world around us.

Instruction in wisdom, therefore, is not merely explicated but demonstrated. For our children to learn wisdom, wisdom needs to be exemplified in our well-ordered lives as parents. It is not enough to have strict rules, stridently catechizing children, and rigidly doing all the right things. Rules are needed. The discipline of catechesis and doing the right thing even when you don’t feel like it are needed. There will be times you will need to fight the distorted visions of beauty that come from the heart of foolishness in a child. But there must be more. Wisdom’s beauty must be exemplified in the home in affection between husband and wife, parents and children. There should be hefty bouts of laughter as well as non-anxious quiet that comes when people are at ease with and around one another.

I’m not talking about putting on sappy, superficial, over-the-top, fake acts, but training your own hearts to love wisdom’s beauty so that the genuineness of your love so pervades your life that your children want to grow up and be like you. As your children grow, they can see the contrast between the life that they see in you and what is going on in people who give themselves over to sin. As you have instructed them along the way about why you are the way that you are, they know how to lead the life that will direct them to be like you.

This wisdom must also be portrayed in the church for the sake of the world. The church is, after all, Lady Wisdom, the helper of the eternal Son in ordering the world under his lordship. Because we are Lady Wisdom as the church, we are to be the embodiment of beauty. The church is to be living a well-ordered life with proper relationships in authority, serving one another in love, maintaining the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, exuberantly worshiping our God.

As we adorn the gospel in wisdom, with our well-ordered lives, in union with Christ we become “the Desire of all nations” (Hag 2.7), the beautiful bride of Christ to whom the nations come for healing and to bring their gifts (Rev 21.9—22.5).

The incarnate beauty of Wisdom is key to discipling the nations.

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On July 22, 2021 By In Family and Children, Wisdom

The Wisdom of Youth

If you have been a part of the church in America for years, then you have probably seen a general pattern in the lives of people. At an early age, a child is involved in the church, being baptized as an infant or by profession of faith. As he grows into his mid to late teenage years, he begins to stray, sowing his wild oats through his college years. Somewhere around his late twenties or maybe early thirties he decides to settle down, get married, and have children. Church meant a lot to him when he was young, so he needs to get his family back in church. He becomes involved in church again so that his child can go through the same pattern he did.

Parents of those in the “wild oats” years tend to accept this pattern as axiomatic. This is just the way things are. They will commiserate with one another with one saying, “You know how it is,” and the other giving the melancholy but affirming nod of the head, acknowledging the unalterable pattern of growing up. Both feel some sense of justification.

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