{"id":589,"date":"2011-07-11T17:54:48","date_gmt":"2011-07-11T21:54:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/philosophicalfragments\/?p=589"},"modified":"2011-07-11T17:54:48","modified_gmt":"2011-07-11T21:54:48","slug":"what-ever-happened-to-wisdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/2011\/07\/11\/what-ever-happened-to-wisdom\/","title":{"rendered":"What Ever Happened to Wisdom?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>
Richard Foster<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

I planned to write a piece today on the institution of marriage, but I\u2019m attending a conference of sorts (I\u2019m not exactly sure what<\/em> this is) and the hours slipped through my over-caffeinated fingers. \u00a0Instead I\u2019ll offer an off-the-cuff reflection on the beauty and the precious rarity \u2014 especially in this age \u2014 of wisdom<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In the act of interviewing Richard Foster,\u00a0author of Celebration of Discipline<\/em> and the current Sanctuary of the Soul<\/a><\/em>, I was reminded how strange and counter-cultural a thing wisdom has become. \u00a0Foster is the kind of guy who not only brings a well-marked Bible to an interview, but who opens it frequently and answers from scripture. \u00a0He\u2019s the kind of guy who takes a year-and-a-half \u201cfast\u201d from writing and public speaking because he believes God wants him to become comfortable again with anonymity and stillness. \u00a0He\u2019s the kind of guy who invites his son to give him a \u201ctrail name\u201d (as is the custom when you hike the Appalachian Trail) and waited for ten years for his son to deliver on the promise. \u00a0The name his son gave him? \u00a0Wisdom-Chaser<\/em>.<\/p>\n

When I was a child, Solomon was among my favorite characters because he was said to be the wisest man in the world. \u00a0Then someone pointed out James 1:5, \u201cIf any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.\u201d \u00a0From that day forward, I prayed for wisdom almost everyday, and sometimes multiple times daily. \u00a0In my childish way of thinking, God had promised a free giveaway. \u00a0If you want freedom, just ask for it, and God will give it. \u00a0So I asked as often as I could. \u00a0If someone had told me that wisdom comes, in large measure, through the things our flesh flees, perhaps I would have asked less eagerly.<\/p>\n

One of the best pieces of advice my father ever gave me was, as I was about to depart for my freshman year at Stanford University, I should seek people of wisdom and not merely intelligence. \u00a0Intelligence is a capacity \u2014 or, more accurately, a collection of capacities. \u00a0We call a person intelligent when she is able to process vast amounts of information, penetrate it with analysis, bring clarity from confusion, or attain new insights or fashion new syntheses of knowledge. \u00a0Like most capacities, intelligence is value-neutral. \u00a0If you have the capacity of drive cars well, you can use that capacity to be a cop or a robber. \u00a0Intelligence, likewise, can be employed to manufacture biological weapons or it can be employed to develop cures, to create internet viruses or to fight against them.<\/p>\n

As predicted, I found many at Stanford who possessed extraordinary intelligence, but quickly came to see that intelligent people were a dime a dozen. \u00a0I was surrounded by intelligent people, some of them breathtakingly intelligent, and yet they did and believed some of the most foolish things imaginable. \u00a0Wisdom is far rarer than intelligence, and far more valuable as well. \u00a0Wisdom is directional, or value-positive. \u00a0You can be immaculately intelligent and utterly deceived in your beliefs. \u00a0But wisdom implies that your beliefs, to the extent you are wise, reflect the truth. \u00a0Wisdom implies that you have gained some insight into the true, the good and the beautiful, that you have listened to Life and learned some of what it teaches.<\/p>\n

Why do we speak so little of wisdom today? \u00a0Kierkegaard wrote that Christ shows us the Truth in the form of Life. \u00a0Christ shows us what it means to live with wisdom. \u00a0The American church, and the evangelical church in particular, by and large does an excellent job explaining why a person might receive the gospel and what he might do to begin growing in Christ. \u00a0Yet it does very little, appallingly little (I think), to help mature Christians grow into men and women of wisdom. \u00a0The world is longing for it.<\/p>\n

Heck, I <\/em>am longing for it. \u00a0I\u2019m very fortunate to have found a church where there are men of wisdom who can provide me with guidance. \u00a0Even so, I found it so very refreshing to sit with another human being for an hour, to look him in the eye, to speak of meaningful things, and share in the bounty of wisdom that God has given him through his life.<\/p>\n

So, look for men and women of wisdom. \u00a0They\u2019re hard to find, because they make no effort to draw attention to themselves. \u00a0They\u2019re not concerned that everyone learn what wise people they are. \u00a0But if you look for people of everyday faithfulness, people who have gone through the ups and downs and emerged with peace and clarity, people whose hearts and minds are thoroughly transformed by the gospel, you will find them. \u00a0They\u2019re out there.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I planned to write a piece today on the institution of marriage, but I\u2019m attending a conference of sorts (I\u2019m not exactly sure what this is) and the hours slipped through my over-caffeinated fingers. \u00a0Instead I\u2019ll offer an off-the-cuff reflection on the beauty and the precious rarity \u2014 especially in this age \u2014 of wisdom. 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