False Wisdom

False Wisdom


The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. I Corinthians 1:18 NIV

To my wife’s chagrin, one of my favorite movies is The Matrix. The poor woman has sat through it on VHS (if you remember those), on DVD and most recently she endured ten minutes of the Blu-Ray version. She rolled her eyes and found something more interesting to do. This time I watched the movie with the audio commentary of two modern day philosophers. After ten minutes I started to roll my eyes too. All they talked about were the beliefs of one dead philosopher or the other. They seemed to conclude that true wisdom finds itself in trusting and believing in nothing and in no one. And to me, a life of chronic skepticism and faithlessness is a sad and terrible existence.

In my opinion, these philosophers have a false sense of wisdom. Fearing God is where wisdom starts (Proverbs 15:33). And humility (knowing who God is and knowing who you are) brings wisdom (Proverbs 11:2). When we come to grips with all that we don’t know and are incapable of doing on our own, that’s when we start depending on God and become people of wisdom. As much as I have learned, I know I still need God and I still find myself regularly asking God for wisdom, because he gives it freely (James 1:5). Think about it, who better to ask for wisdom than the one that formed the universe by His understanding (Jeremiah 10:12)?

One reality about gaining wisdom is that it isn’t how much you know, but “who” you know. Understanding must always be coupled with relationship. The wise people of the world trip over Jesus as He is a stumbling block to them. But Christ is wisdom to those that are being saved.