BIBLICAL WISDOM

Many people think that what's written in the Bible has mostly to do with getting people into heaven -- getting right with God, saving their eternal souls.  It does have to do with that, of course, but not mostly.  It is equally concerned with living on this earth -- living well, living in robust sanity.  In our Scriptures, heaven is not the primary concern, to which earth is a tag-along afterthought.  "On earth as it is in heaven" is Jesus' prayer.

"Wisdom" is the biblical term for this on-earth-as-it-is-in-heaven everyday living.  Wisdom is the art of living skillfully in whatever actual conditions we find ourselves.  It has virtually nothing to do with information as such, with knowledge as such.  A college degree is no certification of wisdom -- nor is it primarily concerned with keeping us out of moral mud puddles, although it does have a profound moral effect upon us.

Wisdom has to do with becoming skillful in honoring our parents and raising our children, handling our money and conducting our sexual lives, going to work and exercising leadership, using words well and treating friends kindly, eating and drinking healthily, cultivating emotions within ourselves and attitudes toward others that make for peace.  Threaded through all these items is the insistence that the way we think of and respond to God is the most practical thing we do.  In matters of everyday practicality, nothing, absolutely nothing, takes precedence over God.

-- Eugene Peterson in “The Message”


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BE TRANSFORMED

"I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God -- what is good and acceptable and perfect." (Romans 12:1-2 NRSV)

Jesus Christ is able to untangle all the snarls in your soul, to banish all your complexes, and to transform even your fixed habit patterns, no matter how deeply they are etched in your subconscious.

--  Corrie ten Boom


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YOUR BODY A TEMPLE

"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?" (1 Corinthians 6:19 NRSV)

Flannery O’Connor’s short story "A Temple of the Holy Ghost" tells of a precocious twelve-year-old girl and two country boys who have come to court her visiting cousins.  The girl overhears her teenage cousins mock a nun, Sister Perpetua, who has suggested a formula to use in fending off fresh young men in the back seats of cars. "Stop sir!  I am a Temple of the Holy Ghost!" the nun taught the girls to say.  The cousins think such advice is hilarious.  The twelve-year-old girl, however, is moved.  The news that she is the dwelling place of God makes her feel as if somebody has given her a present.  She takes it seriously.

The nun’s formula comes from a passage, 1 Corinthians 6, that is among Paul's strongest and most strange.  In trying to shock the Corinthians out of their wild behavior, Paul uses this astonishing argument: "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ Himself?  Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute?  Never!  Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, 'The two will become one flesh.'"

-- Philip Yancey in Rumors of Another World


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THE DWELLING PLACE OF THE SPIRIT

"Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's." (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

What does it mean to honor God with our Bodies? It means we pay attention to where we take our bodies, who we let touch our bodies, how we take care of our bodies. It means we keep our bodies away from sin, we protect them from abusive people and situations, and we actively pursue physical health. Maintaining sexual purity is one specific means of honoring God with our bodies, as is avoiding nicotine, excessive alcohol and caffeine, or any other drugs or substances that could bring them harm… Our bodies are so alive with conflicting desires, so attuned to pleasures and pains, so tempted by immediate gratification. Responding in a God-honoring way to these natural drives and desires requires more discipline and determination than almost anything else. It also requires a conscious submission to God's purpose for our lives, which is to be a pure dwelling place for His own Spirit.

-- Bill Hybels in Making Life Work: Putting God's Wisdom into Action

 
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