When you’re about to hear a reading from Scripture in the Byzantine Churches, you’ll hear the priest or deacon proclaim: “Wisdom!” followed by, “Let us be attentive!” This is because we are about to hear the word of God, divine wisdom in human language, and it behooves us to pay close attention.
I’d like to look at what two apostles, James and Paul, say about wisdom in their writings. That’s a huge topic (and I once considered it for my Master’s thesis many years ago), so I can only scratch the surface here. They both make the contrast between divine or heavenly wisdom and that which is merely earthly (or worse), but their approaches are somewhat different.
Let’s start with St James. First of all, we can be glad that he assures us that the attainment of true wisdom is in fact possible. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him” (James 1:5). Sounds pretty simple: ask and you will receive. But there’s a condition, which we find in the verses that immediately follow: “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting… For one must not suppose that a double-minded man…will receive anything from the Lord.” His teaching here is very much that of his Lord Jesus.
But let’s get to his contrast on the two kinds of wisdom (3:13-17). The wisdom from below is “earthly, unspiritual, devilish,” and it is manifested in “bitter jealously and selfish ambition… disorder and every vile practice.” One would think that the term “wisdom” doesn’t even apply to all this, but it is precisely the unbelieving world that considers ambition and various vile practices to be the smart approach to life. It really isn’t wisdom properly so-called, but rather a satanically sophisticated attitude that is crafty, astute where self-interest is concerned, and skilled in evil. This is the “wisdom of the world.”
“But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insincerity.” This is true, divine, heavenly wisdom, the only kind that really merits the name. I won’t try to comment on each element here, but in your own reflection you should pause to ponder how this true wisdom can be applied in your daily affairs.
St Paul’s approach is rather more theological than St James’ more practical one. But he does make a similar contrast between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God. For Paul, the wisdom of the world isn’t so much the evil-mindedness of the devilishly wise, but rather the philosophical views of those who reject Christ and his Gospel. He is criticizing the pagan Greeks who are always seeking wisdom through philosophy but who somehow missed Wisdom Incarnate in Jesus Christ. The Cross is the litmus test of true wisdom. “When I came to you, brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him
crucified… that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1Cor. 2:1-5).
The power of God is in the Cross of Christ, not in the eloquent formulations of philosophers. In fact, human wisdom threatens to undermine the power of the Cross, if it is preferred to the Gospel of Jesus. Paul was sent to preach the Gospel “not with eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will thwart’” (1Cor. 1:17-19). He goes on, driving his point home, in a couple of densely-packed verses: “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
Human wisdom cannot penetrate the full mystery of God in Christ. That is why “the world did not know God through wisdom.” Paul does say in Romans that we can use our human reason to discover the existence of God (1:19-20). But it takes faith in divine revelation for us to accept the mystery of the Cross, that is, all that Christ has done for us through his death and resurrection. This crucified Savior is simply bosh to ivory-tower philosophers, but this is precisely why Paul makes his point about what really is folly and what really is wisdom. If you think that the message of the Cross is nonsense, then you have joined the ranks of “those who are perishing,” but if you believe it is the power of God, then you are among those “who are being saved.”
The stakes, then, are much higher than who has the better argument or whose rhetoric is more eloquent. It is a matter of salvation or perdition. You don’t need to be a “wise” man, a “scribe” or a “debater” to discover true wisdom. All you have to do is embrace the Cross and Him who died on it for your salvation. Paul continues to show how God’s ways are not the ways of the world, or of the worldly-wise: “Consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world… so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1Cor. 1:26-29).
The bottom line is his extended argument: “The wisdom of this world is folly with God” (1Cor. 3:19). Despite all he says against worldly wisdom, St Paul does not approve of folly as such, only the “folly” that seems to be folly to the worldly-wise: faith in Christ crucified. For there really is a true wisdom, and it really ought to be sought, but you have to know where to look, and it’s not in the universities or among the media elite. “Among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. [Remember that when considering the current social, political, or philosophical trends!] But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1Cor. 2:6-8).
The real wisdom is “secret and hidden,” but not impossible to discover. We only have to turn to Christ, “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3). We must have the Spirit of God, as Paul explains in 1Corinthians 2, in order to recognize God’s gifts and his truth, so that we can discern true wisdom from false. The difference is crucial, for it is the difference between being saved and perishing.
Wisdom is not merely the accumulated riches of intellectual and practical life, acquired by the old and experienced. The Father reveals it to mere children (Mt. 11:25-26), while the “learned and the clever” remain in the dark. The word of true wisdom is “the word of the Cross”; this is the “wisdom from above,” which unmasks all that is “earthly, unspiritual, and devilish.”
So, let us be attentive, for God’s wisdom is being proclaimed by the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus, who casts down the mighty and raises the lowly, who fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty—and who is Himself the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Let those who would be wise in God decide to know nothing except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
