Things That Make Christians Different From The World: Wisdom Series

Things That Make Christians Different From The World: Godly Wisdom

As we continue this series this morning, I want to look at something that is very important to every Christian and that thing is wisdom. We are going to look at what Christians call wisdom and what the world calls wisdom and we are going to examine the differences between the two.

As I’ve said many times before in this series of sermons that there has to be distinct differences between what we know and believe to be true and what the people of the world think that they know and believe to be true. It is no different when it comes to wisdom.

The dictionary defines wisdom like this: Accumulated philosophic or scientific learning. Having good sense. As generally accepted belief. A wise attitude, belief, or course of action. The teachings of the ancient wise men.

I believe that the biblical definition of wisdom can be found in Proverbs chapter 9 verse 10: The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Did you catch the main difference between these two definitions of wisdom? The dictionary definition never mentions God as the source for all wisdom worldly or Christian. The verse from Proverbs tells us exactly where ALL wisdom comes from whether one acknowledges it or not.

The reverence of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom and apart from God there is no real wisdom. And once a person acknowledges the Lord with reverence and begins to receive wisdom and in that process gains knowledge from God then one can begin to gain understanding about who God is, what He wants us to know, and how to apply the wisdom that He gives us to our lives.

Now that we have a basic understanding of the different ways that Christians define wisdom and how the world defines wisdom, I want to look at opposites for a bit.

What is the opposite of wisdom? In my mind the opposite of wisdom is foolishness. I believe that this is how the Bible describes the opposite of wisdom as well.

The people in the world who are not Christians THINK that they are smart, full of wisdom and very wise. The truth is that the enemy has been deceiving them all along. Satan lies to people and leads them to believe that wisdom comes from man and that just because they read a lot, go to school a lot, get degrees, have high I. Q.’s that they are wise and have wisdom. Now don’t get me wrong here, there is nothing wrong with education, reading, or learning about our world but the problem occurs when we as people think that we are smarter than God and that we as people are the ones who create wisdom. We are not the ones who create wisdom, God is!

People in the world tend to think that since they are considered “SMART” that they are better than other folks who hold different beliefs on wisdom and believe that wisdom comes from God and not people are not enlightened enough or are just plain stupid.

Well I guess that I’m just a dumb, simple preacher but I will trust what the Word of God tells me about wisdom and I will reject what the world tries to tell me about wisdom. I will continue to be a simple, foolish man that acknowledges that all wisdom comes from God and in so doing I will be used by God to confound the “so called” wise people of the world.

In 1st Corinthians chapter 1 verses 25-28 we read this: 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 26 For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; 27 but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, 28 and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen…

Two major points here in this passage of Scripture. One is that God has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the “wise”. And God has chosen the weak things (or people) of the world to shame the strong. While we look at the so called wisdom of the world as foolishness we have to understand that a lot of the world also calls what we call biblical wisdom as foolishness too. The debate is who is right and who is wrong.

The world may call us foolish for believing what the Bible says about wisdom and who it comes from so I guess that we will be some of those foolish people that God will use to shame the wise people of this world and we will be blessed to be used by Him to show the world true wisdom.