Monday, September 18, 2017

Living Wisely

My friend Reverend Paul over at Way Up North has been posting excerpts from Eugene Peterson's The Message, which is a more colloquial English translation of the Bible.  Yesterday the reading was from James 3:13:

"Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here’s what you do: Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It’s the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts. Mean-spirited ambition isn’t wisdom. Boasting that you are wise isn’t wisdom. Twisting the truth to make yourselves sound wise isn’t wisdom. It’s the furthest thing from wisdom—it’s animal cunning, devilish conniving. Whenever you’re trying to look better than others or get the better of others, things fall apart and everyone ends up at the others’ throats."

The very first part of the verse caught me:  "Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom?  Here's what you do:  Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It's the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts."  Which brought to mind a question, after I had considered it a bit:  Does the Christian truly value living wisely?

I should think this is one of the places that Christianity could "shine".  We have the very word of God to guide us in the wise living of life - good heavens, we have a whole book - Proverbs - that is essentially devoted to wisdom.  And yet, somehow we look no different from the way the world lives around us.

It matters because wisdom literature is all the rage now via the Internet Meme.  I can post a quote from the Havamal (A collection of poems from the Viking Age) or any number of  laws or sayings from the Celts or the Sioux or even moving haikus from the 12th Century Tale of the Heike and be thought to be a wise man.  I can post a quote from Proverbs and be thought a provincial fool who believes in fairy tales and foolishness.

Remove the supernatural from Proverbs for a moment: just taken at its face, it is good advice.  Follow it and you would be on the road to a successful, wealthy life largely free from self-inflicted harm and fouls.  As good as advice as you would read in any of the works that I referenced above.  And yet somehow we as Christians fail to live according to Proverbs, leaving ourselves open to attack that we believe one thing but actively act as if we do not.

Take as an example Dave Ramsey.  You may or may not care for him (I enjoy his style; my children found him condescending) but his financial advice, even if disconnected from his Christianity, makes good sense:  Do not have debt.  Save.  Pay cash and avoid stupid credit.  Invest and save for retirement.  Any non-Christian Financial Advisor would tell you the same.  Instead, most Christians (including myself here) are not nearly that wise with our money and so we look exactly like the world in terms of our spending, our debt, and our finances in general.  Which begs the question:  If we claim we believe it, why do we not live it?

The reality is that we have the recipe for being thought wise, for living wisely in a world that is sadly lacking in wisdom. However, it will take an investment from ourselves that involves a lot less talking and a lot more living well by living in accord with God says, doing it humbly and silently.  If we live like that, we open the door to how and why we are living that way and where our wisdom is stemming from.

Or as the quote above says, "It's the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts."

2 comments:

  1. The allure of living unwisely is just too much for most of us. There is no Karmic Wheel, there is no judgement and therefore no justice for some; else Hillary Clinton, her husband, and half our leaders would be in cages. They do what they do and get away with it - and inspire others to do the same. It takes a force of will and character to reject that rat race for some reason and most of us aren't up to it.

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  2. True that more often than not the "great" and "powerful" do not get their comeuppance Glen, but I guess I was thinking more at my ordinary lifestyle level. Surely amongst the plebes, there should be examples of wise living from Christians. Why can we not seem to master that in that realm? Historically (for the most part) the great and powerful were often among the last adopters of Christianity. It was in the ordinary parts of society that it grew. So many want wisdom - why do we fail to live as if we had it?

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