On 8th November 1793 Madame Roland died on the guillotine.
She, along with 16,000 others (many of them innocent) was a victim of the Revolution she herself had once promoted. Revolutions have a way of devouring their followers.
Before submitting to the executioner, she bowed before the clay statue of Liberty in the Place de la Révolution, uttering the famous remark: “Oh Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!”
This was not the first, nor would it be the last, time “liberty” has been used to cover up a crime.
1800 years before this Peter warned of those who “speak great swelling words of emptiness, to allure through the lusts of the flesh… While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption.” 2 Peter 2:18-19
And not only liberty; but likewise: equality and fraternity…
The UCA
This past week the Uniting Church in Australia’s National Assembly succumbed to the pressure of a fallen culture’s perverted understanding of “equality” and voted to allow same sex couples to marry in the church.
What was particularly distressing was the comments by the Uniting Church President, Dr Deidre Palmer to justify the decision. She said: “This decision follows many years of reflection, prayer and discernment.”
I can’t remember if I cried
Something touched me deep inside
The day discernment died
Discernment? Wisdom?
“They speak great swelling words of emptiness” to satisfy “the lusts of the flesh”.
“This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic.” (James 3:15)
They call it wisdom!
Amnon had a friend
Some of the most chilling words in the Bible are found in 2 Samuel 13:3 “Amnon had a friend.”
But a horrible “friend” he was. This time it was “fraternity” at its worst.
Amnon had a beautiful half-sister, Tamar.
It says he “loved” her – another abuse of the meaning of a good word.
But the greatest abuse of a good word concerns Amnon’s friend, of whom it is said: “He was a very wise man”, verse 3.
(The NKJV translates this as “crafty”; but it is the normal word translated “wise” 47 times in the Book of Proverbs).
This man’s “wisdom” devised a plan whereby Amnon could get what he wanted to satisfy his lust. This man’s “wisdom” saw the rape of an innocent woman.
Once again, God’s holy Word was ignored and sin was excused in the name of “wisdom”.
Worldly Wisdom in the Bible
How many times has sin been justified by the words: “Wisdom would suggest…”
Or, if not sins as gross as those above, at least folly. Folly exalts man’s wisdom above the wisdom of God.
There are many examples in the Bible.
1) Those who built the Tower of Babel did so to “make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” (Genesis 11:4) Who would argue against the wisdom that wants to promote the unity of the human race in this way?
2) Abraham waited 10 years for God to fulfil His promise to him and his wife; they were now 85 and 75 respectively. Wisdom suggested that it was time to help God out. (Genesis ch 16) After all, “God helps those who help themselves” (Hezekiah 10:20)
3) Moses also tried to help God out at age 40 “supposing that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand…” It seemed a wise move; it was not the worst error of judgment. But neither was it God’s time; and Moses’ people “did not understand.” (Acts 7:25). God had another 40 years before Moses would be ready.
4) Far worse was King Saul’s “error of judgment”. Saul was not noted for taking time to ponder God’s wisdom. When commanded to exterminate the Amalekites, it seemed wise to keep back “the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the Lord your [i.e. Samuel’s] God.” But “to obey is better than sacrifice”. (1 Samuel 15:15,22) Wisdom is in obedience; obedience is wisdom.
I could go on and multiply example after example. They all demonstrate that even “the foolishness of God is wiser than men”. (1 Corinthians 1:25)
Worldly Wisdom in the Church
Such examples warn us to be on the lookout for where we might be allowing confidence in our own wisdom (i.e. “Wisdom would suggest…”) to blind us to God’s wisdom. Sadly there are many examples of this today:
In a previous post I noted how human wisdom trumps God’s wisdom in some aspects of worship today.
In another post, I referred to God’s wisdom for the body of Christ that: “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) But in many churches man’s wisdom practises segregation of God’s people (especially in worship), thereby sending the opposite message to the world.
The saddest aspect of all this is that this has been tried many times before, but has always failed:
- Some of the early missionaries to South India practised segregation through retaining the caste system in their churches in order to accommodate the local culture. This (they maintained) was a matter of wisdom; and, after all, ‘it is not a core gospel issue’. But increasingly this “yielded grievous and even scandalous results.” William Carey, on the other hand, made a deliberate decision from the beginning not to recognise the caste system in the church: the results were slower, but far more fruitful in the end.
- More recently, the Church Growth movement of the 70s came out with the Homogeneous Unit Principle (HUP). This principle states that it is easier for people to become Christians when they must cross few or no racial, linguistic, or class barriers. So there was a concerted effort to plant churches of demographically similar people. Towards the end of 20th C. the HUP was largely discredited. But it is being revived in churches that practise segregated worship.
Another area of concern is the way a Business Model has increasingly supplanted a Biblical Model when it comes to the role of the pastor today.
Ten years ago Peter Hastie in AP (Australian Presbyterian) interviewed Dr Bruce Winter, at that time the Principal of Queensland Theological College. (The full interview can be viewed here.)
Peter Hastie asked: “Do you see models of secular leadership as a threat to the church’s mission, and if so what sort of specific trends in secular leadership come to mind?”
Dr Winter replied:
Yes, I think the secularizing of Christian leadership is a huge threat to the church’s mission. We can trace the growth of this Christian leadership model to one influential American theological seminary in the early 1980s.
I was visiting at the time when they said they wanted to run a course in Christian leadership. They decided they would adopt any secular model of leadership that worked. This explains why they adopted the MBA [Master of Business Administration] manuals in teaching leadership.
Lots of seminaries in the USA went down the same path. Christians now often talk about Christian leadership in MBA jargon. They see church as a business: it’s the corporate model with a CEO at the top.
The whole thing has spread like cane toads in Queensland. The result is that it has changed the way we think about ministry. All anyone ever talks about now is ‘leadership’. Actually, there is only one person who is referred to as a leader in the New Testament, and that is Jesus. He is the only leader.
In my opinion, the influence of MBA-style training in ministry has had a devastating effect on the church. It has wrongly accentuated the personality of the preacher and has created a cult of ‘follower-ship’.
And this is something Paul forbids in 1 Corinthians 1.
The Meekness of True Wisdom
Paul Tripp observed: “To sinners (and that includes us all), wisdom is not natural. It is one of humanity’s most profoundly important quests. Perhaps there are few more significant questions than this: ‘Where is wisdom to be found?’ It is hard for us to gain wisdom by research or experience because they are filtered and interpreted by our own foolish hearts!”
We have too much confidence in our own wisdom. We need to restore confidence in the wisdom of God in the Word of God.
The Psalmist sums it up in Psalm 119:97-100:
Oh, how I love Your law!
It is my meditation all the day.
You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies;
For they are ever with me.
I have more understanding than all my teachers,
For Your testimonies are my meditation.
I understand more than the ancients,
Because I keep Your precepts.
Such wisdom begins with a right relationship with God: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” (Job 28:28; Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 1:7, 9:10, 15:33; Isaiah 33:6)
Such wisdom can only be found as we maintain a right relationship with God through our Saviour, Jesus Christ: “In Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Colossians 2:3)
Again, Paul Tripp: “To be wise, you first need to be rescued from you. You need to be given a new heart, one that is needy, humble, seeking, and ready to get from above what you can’t find on this earth.”
Who is wise and understanding among you?
Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom…
The wisdom that is from above is:
– first pure,
– then peaceable,
– gentle,
– willing to yield,
– full of mercy and good fruits,
– without partiality and without hypocrisy.” (James 3:13-17)