I
Corinthians 1:18-30
Croesus was the king of ancient Lydia,
reigning from 560 to 547 BC.
Famous for his immense wealth, he once encountered a man by the name of
Solon. Solon had traveled
throughout the world and was seen as a person of great wisdom and insight.
Croesus, after showing Solon his vast
stores of treasure, asked which man is
most happy? Because of his great
wealth, Croesus assumed Solon would name him as the happiest man on the
earth. Solon, though, shocked
Croesus by naming others who were happier. They were happy in spite of having no relation to great
wealth, thus teaching Croesus the wisdom that happiness is not found in what we
possess. Croesus had so much, but
he did not have the gift of wisdom.
The middle school I attended had a quote from
the book of Proverbs above the stage in the auditorium – Happy is the man that findeth wisdom (Proverbs 3:13). This is the lesson that Solon sought to
teach to Croesus, that wisdom is a great gift that enriches life in ways that
go far beyond the riches of wealth or possessions.
As we continue our study of spiritual gifts,
this morning we come to the gift of wisdom.
The Scriptures have much to say about
wisdom. Wisdom, in the Biblical
sense, is not necessarily knowledge.
A wise person may have a great deal of knowledge, but it is not
knowledge that makes a person wise.
To have knowledge is to possess a mental store of facts, figures, and
truths that come through education and study. Education is very good at imparting knowledge, but it won’t
necessarily impart wisdom, because wisdom is more than a collection of facts,
figures, and truths; wisdom is the gift of having insight into the nature of
life and truth.
What I have done in most of the messages about
spiritual gifts is to define the gifts.
What I haven’t done as much is talk about how we develop those gifts in
our own lives. I believe that most
people have one or two of these spiritual gifts, but that does not mean that we
cannot develop some measure of the other gifts. I may not have the gift of wisdom, but I can develop some
amount of the gift in my life.
1. Wisdom comes
from living a life of the spirit.
Yesterday morning I was in Louisville and
stopped at a post office. While waiting
in line I was running this message through my mind, trying to get it more
organized. I was staring at one of
the walls and noticed that on the wall was a collection of specialized stamps,
and one of the stamps was labeled wisdom.
How
convenient, I thought. I walked over and looked at the display. The picture on the stamp to represent
wisdom was very interesting but I had absolutely no idea how it related to
wisdom. It was just the word wisdom and a picture. But it had my curiosity, so I had to
find out the relation of the picture on the stamp to wisdom. Where do you go when you need to know
something? Google, of course. The image on the stamp is a sculpture
called Wisdom, and it stands over the
entrance to the GE building at Rockefeller Center in New York City, which also
happens to be #56 out of the top 150 favorite tourist destinations in the
country. The sculpture of wisdom
is 37 feet tall, and under the sculpture is this quotation, which is not on the
stamp, by the way – Wisdom and knowledge
shall be the stability of Thy times, from Isaiah 33:6.
It took a little bit of work to find out what I
wanted to know, but the time invested was worth it.
We are a combination of flesh and spirit, and
if we are going to nurture the gift of wisdom in our lives we must work at
nurturing the spirit. Flesh is the word the Scriptures use for
describing that part of our life where we are concerned with taking care of our
physical needs such as food, water, shelter, making a living, and such matters. The spirit is much different. The spirit deals with other concepts,
and we aren’t as pressed to work at the spirit. If you don’t work at the spirit you won’t go hungry. If you don’t work at the spirit you
won’t lose your job.
This is part of what Paul is talking about in
our Scripture passage this morning, that some people invest nothing into the
life of the spirit. Their lives
are concerned only with the elements of survival each day – making a living,
feeding and clothing ourselves and our families, and gaining a few possessions. There is certainly nothing wrong with
those things; they are essential to life, but a life of wisdom is one that is
concerned about more than just surviving, about more than just feeding ourselves,
about more than just clothing ourselves, and about more than just earning a
living.
A person who thinks there is nothing more to
this life than just existing for the 24 hours of each day will have a hard time
understanding matters and principles of the spirit. This is what Paul means when he says the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.
The logic of a life living without the spirit
is a life that says every penny I earn I
should keep to myself. That money
can be invested to ensure that my needs are taken care of and that I have a
comfortable retirement, and I can buy some of the things I would like to have. The life of the spirit says, I cannot think just about myself. Yes, I need to take care of my own
needs, but I cannot forget that others have needs and some of them are not able
to take care of their own needs.
The life of the spirit is the way of wisdom,
and it is a way of life that is diminished if it is not exercised. Here is where we find one of the great
differences between wisdom and knowledge.
Knowledge can help a person to gain a great many things in life, but
wisdom will guide us in how those things ought to be used.
This is why people gain a great measure of
satisfaction from spending hours working at a fund-raising event, and finding a
great level of satisfaction in making money to give away rather than in making
money to keep. But to someone who
cannot see beyond making money for himself, it seems as foolishness to be
giving anything away.
2. Wisdom seems
counter-intuitive.
I really, really dislike reading instruction
manuals. I inherited this
unfortunate trait from my dad, who used to open a box and immediately throw
away the instruction manual. I can
remember him putting together something one day, and it wasn’t going well, and
he muttered to himself I’m going to have
to dig the instruction manual out of the trash. I especially dislike
reading instruction manuals for computer programs. I would find more joy in nailing my feet to the floor than
in reading software manuals. So as
I was comparing a couple of software programs recently my decision was
immediately made when someone said this
program is much more intuitive – you don’t really need to read the manual to
figure out most of it. That’s
the one I want! Which,
unfortunately, hasn’t proven to be all that intuitive.
Something that is intuitive is something you
can just figure out on your own, because it seems obvious. The problem with faith, the problem with
the life of the spirit, the problem with following Jesus, is that those things
are often counter-intuitive; they don’t always make a lot of sense.
We can be very influenced by the world in which
we live, and not even realize the extent of the influence. When I was young I once asked my mom
how people know to do things such as file their taxes. She was busy collecting papers and
items to file our family’s tax return, and I wondered how people knew about
things such as filing taxes. She
told me, it’s just one of those things
you learn as you grow up. No one
really has to tell you; you just know.
We absorb certain values and beliefs because
they are a part of the culture in which we live. We don’t consciously adopt them or take them to heart; they
just become a part of who we are.
The values of the spirit can be in conflict
with the values of the world in which we live, those values that become a part
of who we are. The values of the
world are often values of self-survival, self-first, getting a bunch of money
and a bunch of stuff, and the values of the spirit are love, and not just love
for those who love us, but love even for our enemies. The life of the spirit is a life of compassion, to say we
will not forget others while we are looking after ourselves.
A life of the spirit – a life of wisdom – will
ask things of us that don’t, at least on the surface, make any sense.
3. A life of wisdom
is a life bound to the lives of others.
The Romans could not understand how the cross could
be a sign of strength or power. To
the Romans the cross was a sign of weakness, because it was used on their
enemies. If you were crucified,
you were weak. The Romans used the
cross unsparingly, because they didn’t value the lives of others. They cared about their lives, but not
the lives of others. The Roman
Empire was full of people who did not matter to the Romans – those whose own
countries had been defeated by the mighty Roman army, the millions and millions
of slaves throughout the Empire, the millions of peasants who struggled to
scratch out a daily existence.
The Christian faith spread rapidly throughout
the Empire, in part I believe, because it preached a message that those people
mattered, and every life mattered.
Those who had been told they were worthless were now told they were of
great value, those who had been told they had no freedom were told they could
have freedom, those who felt forgotten found that someone had indeed remembered
them, and those who were considered unlovable found they were loved.
A life of wisdom is a life that connects to the
lives of others. John Donne wrote the
famous lines –
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls.
It tolls for thee.
(From
Meditation XVI).
1 comment:
There is certainly nothing wrong with those things; they are essential to life.
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