How does one define wisdom? It’s difficult to put into words.
Herman Hesse, in his classic novel, Siddhartha, writes: “Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish. . . . Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.”
One of the most overlooked fruits borne in the life of someone who genuinely follows the way of Jesus and lives in the Spirit, is wisdom. If we put into practice what Jesus teaches us, we will become increasingly wise.
A school teacher asked her class of first graders, “What colour are apples?”
Some children said “red!”
Others exclaimed “green!”
A few said “yellow.”
Then one little boy raised his hand and said, “Apples are white.”
One of the devil’s tactics in the temptation of Jesus, recorded in Matthew 4 and Luke 4, intrigues me. In this story, Satan takes Jesus to the holy city of God, into the house of God, and uses the Word of God to distort the truth of God and oppose the will of God.
Consider the possibility that truth is not a thing or group of things (e.g. ideas, facts, doctrines, etc.) but a Spirit. This seems to be the apostle John’s understanding. For instance, he repeatedly calls the Holy Spirit the Spirit of truth (Jn. 14:17, Jn. 15:26, Jn. 16:13 1 Jn. 4:6) and in 1 Jn. 5:6 he says “the Spirit is the truth.”
In John 14:6, Jesus claims that he is the truth. What does this mean?
I used to think that the truth of Christ was a set of doctrines I needed to believe in, but I’ve become convinced that it is actually his state of consciousness and his way of life that we are now called to participate in.
In an article entitled “Has militant atheism become a religion?” published on Salon.com (March 24, 2013), primatologist Frans de Waal writes, “In my interactions with religious and nonreligious people alike, I now draw a sharp line, based not on what exactly they believe but on their level of dogmatism. I consider dogmatism a far greater threat than religion . . . .”
The first prime minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, once said, “I always tried to be correct, not politically correct.”
Sometimes the pursuit of political correctness and the pursuit of truth are at odds with one another.
In my experience, Mennonites live by the adages “Actions speak louder than words” and “Faith without works is dead.”
The way many Canadians understand and talk about truth has changed. Some Christian thinkers believe the church needs to change how we understand and talk about truth as well, if we are to engage our fellow Canadians in meaningful conversations about God and faith.
I can’t imagine two scientists debating something of a scientific nature and concluding, “Well, you have your truth and I have mine.” Yet this attitude is quickly becoming the norm when discussing matters of spirituality in Canada today. Why is that?
I’ve had a number of conversations recently where the topic of truth has come up. Without exception, someone inevitably says, “There is no truth with a capital T. You have your truth and I have my truth. But there is no absolute Truth.”
'That Christmas morning we unwrapped the video game and pretended to be surprised and elated. We installed the cartridge into our Atari game console...' (Image by WikimediaImages/Pixabay)
The weeks leading up to Christmas brought an overwhelming spirit of anticipation to our household when I was growing up. In fact, the intensity of waiting to open our gifts on Christmas morn was too much for my brother and me to bear.
I came across an article about the epic journey of sugar from a sugarcane field on the Hawaiian island of Maui to a nearby coffee shop down the road. It claimed the sugar travelled about 16,000 kilometres to arrive at its final destination a little over a kilometre away.
During our 13 years in Niagara, my wife and I grew to appreciate the beauty and complexity of the winemaking process. Wine is fascinating to me. So is its intimate connection with the Christian faith. Consider how significant Jesus made wine to our understanding of redemption.
There seems to be a growing interest in the “slow church” movement as an alternative to “fast food church.” What is fast food church?
The fragrance of old books mingled with stale pipe tobacco washed over me like finely aged wisdom, fermented from years of deep contemplation. Every wall of the late history professor’s study was concealed behind rows of shelves fully stocked with hardcover and paperback treasure. My sense of gratitude for the invitation to come “pillage” Robert’s library morphed into unbridled excitement.
The brilliant Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said, “The world is in truth a holy place.” He was echoing the words of the prophet Isaiah who wrote, “the whole earth is filled with God’s glory.” God’s presence and glory can be perceived anywhere if we have “eyes to see and ears to hear.” Yet it is clear certain places, people and things help us tune into the reality of God’s presence mo
One of my atheist friends told me about a unique encounter with a “holy” man that ignited her spiritual awakening. She met a Buddhist monk visiting the city she lived in, and her friend offered to tour him around for the day. They were amazed at the monk’s sense of wonder and childlike excitement, he never seemed to stop smiling.
One of the many fascinating events to occur in the Book of Exodus is God “leaving” the mountain of God (Mount Sinai) to travel with the Hebrews to the Promised Land in a portable sanctuary called the tabernacle.
So what does the Bible say about thin places?
