Bonhoeffer 4 Wisdom
James 3:13-17
Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.
Reflection
I read that human knowledge is doubling every twelve hours. Where did I read this? On the internet, of course, the fount of all knowledge these days! But has this huge increase in knowledge given us any more wisdom or are we, to quote a phrase, ‘none the wiser’?
A poet once wrote ‘Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? / Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?’ These words, which sound strikingly relevant to our situation today, were actually written in 1934 by T S Eliot.
Not many years later Bonhoeffer began work on what would have been his ‘magnum opus’. He made several starts but never finished it. The material he wrote has been edited and published under the title ‘Ethics’. (The German word ‘Ethik’ has a broader meaning than the English translation.) In it Bonhoeffer writes this concerning wisdom:
“Only that person is wise who sees reality in God. Knowledge of reality is not just knowing external events, but seeing into the essence of things. The best informed person is not the most intelligent…the best informed people are in danger of missing the essential amid the variety…the wise person will seek to obtain the best possible information about the course of events without becoming dependent on it. Wisdom is recognizing the significant in the factual.”
Bonhoeffer’s relating wisdom and God may remind us of the words ‘the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’ (Proverbs 9.10), remembering that ‘the fear of the Lord’ means ‘reverence for the Lord’ not ‘being afraid of the Lord’.
The words from the letter of James quoted above suggest that wisdom has an ethical dimension; it is ‘peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy’. James also suggests that if we lack wisdom we should ask God for it, and God will give it to us (1.5). Is this something you pray for?
Prayer
Loving God, help to recognize what is significant in all the information and knowledge which confronts us and sometimes overwhelms us. May your Holy Spirit so mould our lives that wisdom is seen in the kind of people we are and the kind of things we say and do. Amen.