Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Despite rumors and concerns there were no follow up attacks in the United States. Which raises the question – are you safer today than yesterday? We addressed this in the last post – we are only truly safe if we belong to Christ. To help underscore this truth, Proverbs offers some helpful commentary. Note the relevance of these words. Discuss it with your children. Thank God for it in your prayers. The Lord is our confidence. Praise his name! 21 My son, preserve sound judgment and discernment, do not let them out of your sight; 22 they will be life for you, an ornament to grace your neck. 23 Then […]
Wisdom
270 posts
If you read the last post, you might well be asking how wisdom and the Beatitudes fit together. You know your child should learn to be wise; you also know that he should be poor in spirit. Yet, at first glance, there appears to be a lack of specificity to both goals. For example:
The last several posts have focused on the excellence of wisdom and the pursuit of wisdom. Anyone who reads the Bible regularly is familiar with Proverbs, where wisdom is highly commended. But familiarity too often breeds neglect—if not contempt. I believe it is helpful to stop for a moment to consider what the pursuit of wisdom looks like today. To set the stage, here are some basics about wisdom truths:
Proverbs 2 says sexual immorality is something that is damaging to people – something that need to be saved from. For many enlightened people, this is an outdated viewpoint. More and more Americans believe that they can discard this thinking as easily as they would yesterday’s newspaper. American young people are becoming increasingly wary of commitment. According to a new study done by the University of Missouri, the creative solution to handling the stress of commitment is something called stay-overs. An article entitled Living together – too much commitment for today’s couples, in USA Today about this study explains:
We have been looking at how wisdom offers protection from sexual immorality and from the ways of wicked men. In the last post we saw that Joseph acted wisely when he fled from Potiphar’s wife. What caused Joseph to have this immediate, emotional, and wise response to temptation? The answer will help you train your children to live for God in a sinful world. It will help you as well. Several positive factors combine to produce this protection for Joseph. Let’s look at them.
No child is born wise. Wisdom is a skill that must be acquired. If you are waiting for your child to grow up and begin to make wise choices, you will be waiting a long time. Ruth Younts says that Christian “wisdom is knowing and understanding the truth, obeying the truth, and making wise decisions based on the truth.” This is why Proverbs is adamant that we must get wisdom. Imparting God’s wisdom is far more than information transfer. Providing God’s wisdom to your children begins with the gospel. Apart from embracing the gospel, no one will even desire to be biblically wise. Wisdom is living a life that is oriented toward God, toward honoring God in each decision that […]
It takes faith to believe in darkness. I know these words may seem foolish. Many would say that the darkness of the world is the one thing that we don’t need faith to believe in. It is all too obvious that we live in a dark world! True enough–but without biblical faith it is impossible to grasp just how dark this world is. While many may agree that the world is dominated by darkness, they also believe that somewhere is a glimmer of light that man can find by himself. They have an ongoing belief that as our eyes adjust to the darkness we will be able to see a tiny crack of light spilling out from under a doorway, […]
If you fly on an airplane or travel any distance by ship, your safety hinges on what is unseen. This may not sound accurate, since the pilot flying the plane looks through a window and the captain of the ship stands on the ship’s bridge to view the waters ahead. But visual recognition, particularly on long journeys, is not the most helpful means of navigation. In fact, trusting what is seen in these situations often leads to disaster. (It is true that ocean-going ships can use the stars for navigation, but modern electronic positioning is the more dominant form.) For successful and safe directions on long trips in this modern era, trusting what is unseen is vital. For a journey […]
I recently had the privilege of interviewing Tedd Tripp. I asked Tedd to list four important truths that he believes that parents should weave into their parenting based upon his interactions and experiences in teaching families. Tedd listed these:
Wisdom from above. Wisdom from God. What does it look like? This one sentence in James 3:17 lists seven facets of the wisdom that comes from heaven. The first three facets show the radical nature of following God. Let’s look at them one by one. However, before we start it is only fair to issue a warning to anyone who chooses to read further. Reading—and then implementing wisdom from heaven—will be hazardous to your flesh. It is simply not possible to take these words seriously and continue to live and speak just as you have been doing for years. The change may be painful, but it is the change of putting off what is old and destined for destruction anyway, […]