My reason for quoting Tozer is simple. I had been noting the many references, in fact, around seventy-five of them, emphasizing the need for knowledge, wisdom, understanding, true judgment and discernment found in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian Christians. The repetitive mention of these themes focuses our attention upon that which a confused Christian congregation is in vital need of and especially that which its leaders should exercise themselves diligently to obtain both for their own sakes and the sake of the flock. The Corinthian Christians were thoroughly imbalanced in the way they viewed various doctrines, chaotic in many church practices and becoming tolerant of sin in their midst as a result. They had little wisdom and even less discernment.
A simple look at the way Paul mentions the gifts of the Spirit will help focus our attention aright. Apparently the Corinthian church was not lacking in any spiritual gift as it waited for the revealing of the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:6,7). “Not lacking,” surely that is something rarely seen today! Alas though, these saints had not been wise with these divinely bestowed gifts. They had accorded undue honor to some and relegated others to a lesser position. This was nothing less than foolishness. Note the famous list of nine Paul particularly mentions (1 Corinthians 12:8-10). We must link this in with his statement that there are ‘higher’ gifts that should be earnestly desired (1 Corinthians 12:31) and ask ourselves, what are these higher gifts? The answer must be, the ones he mentions at the head of his list and wisdom leads the way. Surely this is reminiscent of exhortations to be found in the Old Testament. How very clearly the writer of the Proverbs says “Wisdom is the principle thing, therefore get wisdom: and with all your getting get understanding” (Proverbs 4:7).
What is wisdom though? The very least we can answer is that it is an ability to accord things their appropriate value, to rightly compare this with that, to understand the comparative worth of each so that things highly esteemed are highly esteemed and things worthless are acknowledged to be so with the relative values of the gradations of the things that lie between those two poles understood also. Apparently the Corinthian believers were guilty of not valuing that which God had given them appropriately. They honored the gift of tongues out of all proportion, putting it at the top of their list of proofs of spiritual virility. The gift of tongues has value, it is God given and should be desired but it must not be granted the honor these believers accorded it. Everything must be in its place and so contribute its part to the making of a complete whole. Sadly Christian love and the unity of the body of Christ were relegated to a lower rank as this Corinthian congregation proudly affirmed the idolatrous adulation of their favorite apostle; thus they split into the various factions that threatened the very existence of their assembly (I Corinthians 1:12). All this was so reflective of the culture around about them, full as it was of so many ‘spiritualities’ and philosophical schools.
Yet probing deeper into the matter of wisdom in both the Old and New Testaments we cannot but come face to face with the fact that wisdom becomes personified in each of them. Wisdom does not remain an ‘it’! In Proverbs wisdom is portrayed as a female. Folly is also set forth in the same way; she is a temptress. Anyone who cares to read chapters in the book of Proverbs, in particular, eight and nine will find something of wisdom and folly personified becoming plainly seen. And we should not be surprised to find that Paul writes of wisdom as a Person in his letter to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 1:24). The thought of Christ as the wisdom of God is expanded powerfully “And from Him (God) you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption,” (1 Corinthians 1:30). God has given us four things specifically mentioned here and these are all to be found in the Person of the Lord Jesus. These are not listed in some arbitrary order, but under the inspiration of the Spirit of Christ wisdom is found first of the four and doubtless practical righteousness can only flow from Christ as our wisdom. Our holiness of living and the redemption of our soul and body flow from the wisdom of God as revealed in Christ. Wisdom is not a code of law, a set of rules by which we live. It is not a set of ‘core values’ to which we adhere slavishly. Christ Himself is God’s gift to us. In, through and from Him the humble seeing heart will receive an understanding of what value we are to accord to the many constituent parts that make up our lives. The true worth of family, of church, of politics and education (to mention but a few) can only be brought to us from Christ and our relationship with Him is all-important. It is from Him that balance is found as He is made unto us wisdom in the midst of the things that demand our attention. It is folly to lavish too much value upon family to the neglect of church or vice versa for instance. But, are we to make either of these into a code of belief and live by it, or are we to live from Him Who is made unto us wisdom and therefore, at each stage in our life shows us where to place the value and the priority?
This is a matter of vital importance. We all live in a world that has its ‘received wisdom.’ Take the West for instance where, in the matter of the ideal family this takes the form of the ‘nuclear unit.’ Ideally the accepted world wisdom enforces the values of mother and father, married with two children, preferably a son and a daughter duly planned for and brought into the world at a time when parents have enough finance behind them. Good jobs providing sufficient funds to own a house and raise their children in what is really comparative luxury compared with the two-thirds world are vital. The pressure of this apparent wisdom means that family planning is vital, contraception essential and so we could go on. It inevitably elevates certain lucrative careers as a vital component and college education with degrees at the end becomes the normative way for every child and other forms of employment frowned upon. It is time to consider how we in the churches either yield without serious thought to this received wisdom or maybe we do just the opposite and cull out from the Scriptures an alternative Biblical wisdom, a system of belief to counteract what is perceived to be the folly of the worldly wise way of being family. Almost inevitably this becomes a ‘law’ to those who espouse it, a code of behavior rigorously upheld and opposed to what is at work in the world. It becomes one of the ‘core values’ of that particularly church group and others are inevitably and subtly excluded if they do not absorb that shape. Recently I heard of someone with a group of Christian friends who had reacted against city life, “Christians need to head to the hills, there are bad times around the corner, judgments from God are coming on the cities and we will be safe up there” was their watchword. The received wisdom of the world with its drive for career and status says one thing and here are believers reacting with a received code that appears to be wisdom because it has certain Bible passages to back it up. But is this apparent wisdom coming from the Living Christ with whom they are in fellowship or is it a knee jerk reaction to a life style perceived as unbiblical and a travesty of what it means to be human? Have these things become a rigid pattern and do they provide a path into acceptability among their fellows or is each hearing from the Lord Himself so that they know that in these matters Jesus is being made unto them wisdom from God (1 Corinthians 1:30)? It amused me to hear that this escape to the hills also required that all who took this path of wisdom needed to purchase four-wheel drive vehicles, the usual run of the mill auto will not do! The extreme view here suggests that this is an obsession rather than the fruit of the wisdom of the Living Christ imparted to hearts. Probably, for that group obedience to such an idea has become a rite of passage to true belonging.
How easy it is to accept a code to live by instead of exercising ourselves to know Christ as our wisdom day by day as we face the multiplied issues and choices of life. Married couples need to know Him in this way as they consider their life together. Leaderships in our churches should live with the eyes of their hearts ever toward the Lord for His wisdom in the tricky situations that inevitably arise in church life. Surely it is most wonderful that we can know Christ making known His mind to us so that all we do is the fruit of a vibrant relationship with Him. He is our treasure and what we do we do from Him, through Him and unto Him. We must always bear in mind that the great purpose of God is to bring us to Himself. “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God (1 Peter 3:18). Beautiful indeed, is this thought. It is not to a system that He brings us, but to Him Who is the living fountain of all and from Whom we are to expect and receive our wisdom, so that more and more He Himself is interpreting to us how we should then live.
