When I was about 5 years old a school teacher used Intellectual Wisdom to teach me how to read, write and do arithmetic. This empowered me to obtain the rest of my school education which in due course empowered me to obtain employment after school. My schoolboy literacy also empowered me to read the Bible and become a Christian. Biblically illiterate Christians may be common but to the best of my knowledge and belief there are no Literacy illiterate Christians. Thank God for giving you power to understand things about spiritual warfare and thank your school teacher for giving you power to read God's words.
It is naive to say that the Bible is the only book that qualifies or deserves to be called a Book of Wisdom and wrongly quote 2 Timothy 3:16-17 in the process. All recognizable wisdom belongs to one of two categories : it is either Moral Wisdom or Intellectual Wisdom. Or it may be a mixture of both. Intellectual Wisdom can empower us for success in all kinds of things, whereas Moral Wisdom empowers us for success in spiritual warfare. When Paul said Eye hath not seen nor ear heard etcetera at 1 Corinthians 2:9-10, Paul is not referring to anything that is plainly written in or commonly understood from the 66 book Bible. The sixty-six book Bible is too common and familiar to represent the secret things that Paul is referring to. To pretend that there is no such thing as secret wisdom is tantamount to pretending there is no such thing as a mystery or an unanswered question. Consider the mystery of the words of Matthew 7:21.
The Bible mentions secret wisdom in allusive terms. The meat that Paul refers to in 1 Corinthians 3 and Hebrews 5 represents secret things. And this meat is also mentioned by the Lord at Matthew 24:45. Obviously there are reasons why some people enjoy reading profoundly interesting books that others prefer to scoff at. Consider the words of Matthew 7:6. Scripture references are from the KJV. I guess that people who have posted Charismaphobic Videos on the Internet will obtain more wisdom from the comments of their critics than from the comments of their flatterers.
Here is some independent stuff that I don't expect you to find in any book already written. Bad impulses create thoughts that cause false reasoning to arise in the mind. They are temptations that cause humans to make choices or moves that often seem right but are not in our best interests. Temptations belong to 4 basic categories that can be expressed in words and here is a description of them.
1 SACRIFICE THE IMPORTANT FOR THE UNIMPORTANT. This manifests itself as Neglect in matters of considerable importance, Laziness in matters of the same, Procrastination in matters of the same.
2 ATTEMPT TO GOVERN WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR POWER. This manifests itself as Acting hastily in matters that require patience or special prep and not giving due consideration to those two, Taking unnecessary risks, Committing injustice against God or man.
3 MAKE UNNECESSARY CHANGES. This manifests itself as Yielding to immoderate or inordinate desires. There is a saying that When change isn't necessary it is necessary not to change. And I guess from this we have the derivative : If a thing ain't broke don't fix it. However, life does not stand still and Satan continually tries to trick humans into making changes they ought not to make and not make ones they ought to make. Aristotle said : In all things change is sweet because of a fault in our nature. For just as a changeable man is faulty, so is a nature that needs change, for it is not simple or good.
4 TAKE UNNECESSARY PRECAUTIONS. This manifests itself as Yielding to irrational fear. There is a limit to what fear can make a person do but I guess there is no limit to what it can make them imagine. The Penguin Dictionary of Proverbs says : All temptations are found either in hope or fear.
A more succinct way of describing these 4 categories are these 4 words : Laziness, Recklessness, Insatiableness and fearfulness. For more info on topics of this kind read Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean. You will find it in part 2 of Aristotle's Ethics. Aristotle Said : It is customary to say of well-executed works that nothing can be added to them or taken away : the implication being that excess and deficiency alike destroy perfection, while the mean preserves it.
George Warner
