The Word Made Flesh (Wisdom Series Part 3)

AUGUST 14, 2020

By Pastor Steve Peich

A few years back there was research done on what married Christian men believe about doing work around the house. The study showed that Christian men strongly believe in doing equal work around the house. However, when researchers looked further, they found that the women are still doing most of the work, by far! What’s going on here? 

As I have stated previously, my working definition of biblical wisdom is this: The skillful and godly application of God’s values, purposes, and truth in the many practical affairs of everyday life. In this third devotional on biblical wisdom, I want to reflect on the notion of application in the practical affairs of everyday life. 

Wisdom is not just knowledge, it’s applied knowledge. Consider what Jesus says at the end of His monumental sermon on wisdom, which we call, The Sermon on the Mount. He says in Matthew 7.24: “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise person who built their house on the rock .....”

Notice Jesus doesn’t say, “everyone who hears these words and really believes them, or gets really excited about them, is like a wise person.” No, the wise person is the one who puts Christ’s words into practice. And this is always expected of wisdom in the Bible: to end up out of our heads and into our hands; into the minutiae of everyday life. As I have alluded to previously, wisdom is not so much about intellectual prowess, but about competence––the ability to rightly and effectively apply the God’s truth in concrete ways.

In the wisdom writings of the Bible, you see issues covered like work, relationships, leadership, money, justice, speech, sex, listening, emotions, enabling, and even being opinionated! For example, Proverbs 18.2 says: “A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing their personal opinion.” What would happen to the Twitter-sphere or Facebook, or what would happen to cable news and political dialogue, or to our work spaces and even our churches if we applied the wisdom of this one verse in our everyday affairs?

We, evangelicals, tend to be very passionate about the Word of God. We emphasize it in so many different ways, and this is a good thing. In fact, for many churches it is often the centerpiece of the worship service. But over the past 36 years of ministry I have noticed something interesting. We love the ideas of the Word, but struggle deeply to love putting them into the actions of our daily lives. 

I think this happens because loving ideas keeps me safe, keeps me from getting muddied by the world of reality. I don’t get tired and worn out when I love ideas, but it does sometimes wear me out to live out the ideas of Christ in a not so Christ-like world. I love the idea of blessing people who hate me, but it wears me out to bless those who hate me. It wears me out to love my enemy. It wears me out to help the drug addict or to share my faith with non-Christians. You get the idea.

But the world doesn’t change when we just love ideas. Relationships don’t change. Kids don’t change. The poor don’t change. Politics don’t change. We don’t change when we just love ideas.

You see, the truly wise soul is the one filled with stories and scars of God’s truth applied in an ungodly world. As writer and professor Alan Deutschman once wrote: “It doesn’t matter what you know, if you can’t do what you know.” 

Bottom line, when I find myself loving the idea of peace, but not actually making peace; or loving the idea of discipleship, but not actually making disciples; or loving the idea of justice, but not actually doing justice, then I’m missing the whole point of being a person of godly wisdom. Eventually, folks, the word has to be made flesh.

Bottom line, listening to the word and studying it and getting excited about it and singing it and even weeping over it is great, but it’s still not wisdom if it does not end up in our actions. 

Prayer: Lord, fill me with Your Spirit and wisdom to be a person of action; a person who finds joy in making manifest the purposes, power, values, and character of Your Kingdom in my everyday world. Give me the courage and the energy to withstand the scars that may come as I demonstrate the wisdom of Your ways in an ungodly world. Use me as an instrument for Your glory. Amen.

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