Decision-Making
Do not become wise with yourselves. Romans 12:16
Wise – If your biblical orientation is Greek, you will have quite a struggle with this verse. Does it mean that you need to stop thinking, learning, questioning and reflecting? Does it mean that you must strive for the “simple” faith, accepting uncritically whatever is taught? Most people reject this interpretation, but they don’t stop thinking like Greeks. They decide that the verse is about pride. They proclaim that Paul warns us about arrogance and an attitude of self-sufficiency. But the verse doesn’t say, “Do not become proud.” If Paul wished to say that, there was a very nice Greek word available, hubris. No, this verse uses the word phronimos, a word that focuses on how we think. In Greek, it’s about practical sensibility. Negatively, it means self-complacency. In other words, you think you have all the answers.
But Paul isn’t Greek. What do we discover when we think of his statement from a Hebrew perspective? We end up in the Garden.
“And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and the tree was desirable to make one wise.” Wisdom has very little to do with intelligence. From a biblical perspective, from the Hebrew point of view, wisdom is about decision-making. Wisdom (sakal in Hebrew) is a word from moral vocabulary, not intellectual extension. It is about alignment with God’s point of view. It is about what is right, righteous, good and holy. It has nothing to do with IQ, grades or degrees. One can be the world’s greatest scholar, even in the Bible, and still be an utter fool. Wisdom is about who decides what is good and what is evil in your life. What Paul tells us is really pretty simple. Don’t become your own standard of right behavior.
Every man did what was right in his own eyes. This is the biblical equivalent of being a fool. Only God knows what is right. I can listen and obey, or I can decide that the fruit will make me wise and I will be like a god, determining what is good by myself. The world is full of those who have become wise in themselves. They have stopped listening to the outside voice of reason and righteousness. They have turned God off. Now they are following the pathway of the serpent. They will eventually become animals, guided only by their own inner voices. When the metamorphosis is complete, God gives them up. They are no longer human by any biblical standard. In case you didn’t realize it, you should know that the world is de-volving, not evolving. It is slipping inevitably toward animal consciousness and away from being human. Why? Because from a biblical perspective, I am human only insofar as I am in alignment and in conversation with my Creator. I am born to become human. But becoming human is a choice. It is the same choice that the woman faced long ago. It takes wisdom, not intelligence, to make the right choice. It is the choice to be dependent, insufficient and submissive. Wisdom is the choice not to be wise in your own eyes. How are you doing today? Feeling wise?
Topical Index: Do not become wise with yourselves. Romans 12:16
I think that in the Garden, it was the deception of the serpent to make the woman believe that the fruit would make her wise (in her own eyes). Yet it was from the tree of the knowledge of of good and evil. This is the ‘knowledge’ that we believe in our own hearts gives us ‘intelligence’. With enough ‘knowledge’ we can make our own choices and “be as gods” (in our own eyes). 🙁
That surely was not wisdom which would instead lead us to the Tree of Life, which is the Word of GOD, which is Yahushua! 🙂 When we substitute worldly knowledge for the wisdom of the Word…, we merely become wise in our own eyes.
Nice to see your thinking here. My new book, The Perfect Enemy, which will be written soon, will look in great detail at the implications of all this as it affects the God-designed role of women and the resulting reversal of that role with the entry of sin. Stay tuned.
Skip
Wisdom is alignment with the life and purposes of God. The differentiation in Scriptures between the fool and the wise is sharply contrasted. Psalms 14 tells us that “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good. THe Lord looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.”….If God and His Word is truth, then to stand in opposition to God’s truth is not merely a lack of intelligence or lack of reason, but sheer folly (foolishness) to the greatest degree! James 1:5 instructs us in this principle (wisdom being in alignment with God): “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given him.” It isn’t as though we are asking God to give us greater brain function, greater use of our creative skills or to help us with our reasoning potentials…but rather, God is the one we must ask to give us spiritual wisdom which we are incapable of achieving on our own or through self-effort.
Thanks, David. The Hebrew idea of wisdom is not about intellectual capacity, or even about “street smarts.” Wisdom is a MORAL concept. The one who lacks wisdom lacks moral integrity. Therefore, a fool is a person who lives outside of, or in opposition to, Torah, i.e. apart from the revealed will of God. To ask for wisdom is to ask God to bring about His will in our lives – to bring us back into alignment with His purposes, not to give us greater knowledge. In fact, insight is a function of obedience, not the other way around. The rabbis even suggest that if a man ceases to be obedient, he may lose his insight.
Skip
See. Even the rabbis are lead by the Spirit! 😉
Hi Skip,
May God’s Word continue to be uplifted by you and your staff! May your endeavors to go to Israel be fruitful this time!!!
DO you have any writings on Passover; explaining those verses where Christ told His Disciples to go and prepare the Passover when they asked “On the first day of Unleavened Bread His disciples came to Him, asking where do You want us to prepare the Passover?” When He ate with them was that at the same time that everyone was having their Passover Meal…? or was this a before meal…? the Last Supper….? Wasn’t Christ to be our Passover Lamb…. and to die on the appointed time of the slaying of the Lambs for the Passover Meal? SO many questions, so much trust, so much Love for our Lord. I guess this is a question that will go down in our “Heavenly Notebook” (unanswered questions to ask the Lord when we all get to Heaven!) BUT seriously, do you have any insight into these many questions that so many propose? Do your studies of the GreeK and Hebrew help you at all to understand any of this any better than what we see in our English or Spanish versions??? We will celebrate our Passover Meal the Eve of Passover any way…. He is our Passover…. it would just be nice to be able to understand if He really died on that day at the appointed time for the slaughter of the Passover Lambs…. will we ever know? Does it matter? What does God expect us to know???? How much study can we actually do on this one subject?????
Shalom…. is my prayer. Shalom for believers in Yeshua. Shalom for all those Jewish people who have not yet seen Yeshua as their Messiah…. May this Passover draw them ever closer to that realization.
Thank you, Skip, for all of your writings…. we love them.
In His Amazing Love, Linda and Kelvin Morales
Bayamon, Puerto Rico
TO Linda and Kevin,
I had to laugh when you uplifted the staff. There is NO staff, only me. Patrick volunteers to help on the tech stuff and we have great conversations, but At God’s Table is just me. So, thanks for lifting me up twice. 🙂
As for all the questions on Passover, I have occasionally written about it and I believe recently on the issue of the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Maybe it’s still to come. Anyway, the subject is wide. There is a lot more to say – slowly. Most of us in the Christian world are so convinced that our calendars and holidays are Scriptural that we are shocked to find out they are based in human tradition, and sometimes in pagan religion. You might start this exploration with the series of books from Todd Bennett called “Walk in the Light.”
Skip
>staff
LOL!! Skip does write a MASSIVE amount of material. It’s hard enough to keep up as a reader for crying out loud! =)
Btw, Linda and Kevin, I recommend starting with The Law and Grace by Todd Bennett. But only if you’re willing to swallow the red pill and see the real world. Otherwise, just take the blue pill. 😉