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What the Bible says about God's Wisdom
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Deuteronomy 8:2-3

God must work with great wisdom to expose our weaknesses, our spiritual poverty, to us, which is what He is explaining here. It took Him forty years to expose the weaknesses of the children of Israel so that they would begin to cry out to Him to fill the vacuum in their lives. What God does He does to break pride's power over us and destroy our continual focus on ourselves, allowing us to compare ourselves with the true standard, Him. Pride's power gives us perverted judgment of what reality is, making us unable to give true praise and thanksgiving except in a general way. Pride's power makes us think that we did it ourselves.

John W. Ritenbaugh
New Covenant Priesthood (Part Three)

Job 33:8-14

Job demands his "rights," as though he somehow deserves them. Elihu's approach, however, is interesting and pertinent. "God is greater!" he exclaims, which is absolutely correct. It should have been Job's mindset from the beginning, but he approaches God as an equal or perhaps even lower!

Job's primary concern is "Why?" Job's three "friends'" primary concern is God's justice. Yet Elihu argues that God is inscrutable and far greater by any human standard of measurement. So to compare God's judgments against man's familiar standards lessens God from what He is.

Paul in Romans 11:33-36 provides some insight here:

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! "For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor?" "Or who has first given to Him and it shall be repaid to him?" For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Job, Self-Righteousness, and Humility

Job 42:1-6

It is not the brilliant, luminous glory of God's appearance that humbles Job but God's power, intelligence, and wisdom revealed in the creation. This, combined with His right to do with it as He pleases, brings Job to understand how ignorant, puny, and base he is by comparison.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Sovereignty and Its Fruit: Part Ten

Psalm 8:1-4

Other translations use words like "glorious," "majestic," and "to be admired" rather than "excellent" to express the feelings generated by meditating on how God is revealed by the heavens He created! The starry heavens stretched before David showcase the awesome and spectacular majesty of God.

Commenting on verse 1, the Soncino Commentary says that God's majesty is "rehearsed above the heavens." Rehearse can mean "to repeat" or "tell in detail." David tells us that God has invested the heavens with awesome splendor to direct man's mind to ponder the Creator's existence, majesty, and excellence. This thought also implies that He is just as majestic in demonstrating Himself on earth as He is in the heavens. What excellence do we see in earth and heaven? Power, order, beauty, loving providence, wisdom, reason, logic, and vastness of thinking.

David intended this psalm to direct our thinking toward God's greatness and puny man's insignificance. However, that awesome, majestic, glorious God is glorifying Himself in man! He has chosen what the world considers weak and foolish—us—to appreciate and respect His glory, His name.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Third Commandment (1997)

Matthew 5:43-45

Jesus says this to help us grasp the marvelous, obliging, and almost overwhelming generosity and magnanimity of God's approach toward His creation. He acts this way despite all that we have thoughtlessly and self-centeredly done against Him personally and His creation, which certainly includes other people both converted and unconverted. Regardless, He still gives and gives some more. Why? Because this is the way that He is by nature, setting us an example of what He wants us to become in our natures too.

Do not be misled, though. He is not a thoughtless, wealthy, spendthrift sap. He does all this giving with purposeful wisdom, and especially so with His children that He is now preparing for His Family Kingdom.

When dealing with His children, His giving nature does not change. It is, however, more directed and focused on their preparation for their future in His Kingdom. Yes, He directly tests us, but because we are the apple of His eye, He provides us with the comfort and encouragement of I Corinthians 10:13:

No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.

Thus, we are given assurance that even in the midst of the difficulties necessary for our preparation to inherit the Kingdom as co-heirs with Christ, He will generously supply our needs.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Living By Faith and God's Grace (Part Two)

1 Corinthians 2:7-8

By using those who killed Christ as an illustration, Paul shows that everyone has been held captive to ignorance of God and His way. God's wisdom was hidden from "the rulers of this age." Had they had it, their minds would have had the material to reach a far different conclusion about what to do about Christ. They would have produced a different result.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Fruit of the Spirit

1 Corinthians 2:7

The word "mystery" is not the same as our English usage of the word. "Mystery" to the Greek meant not a puzzle that was difficult to solve, but a secret impossible to penetrate. It was something that was hidden and unintelligible to those who were not initiated, as into a secret society or as into a religion.

Most of you have heard of the mystery religions. What they did was unintelligible to those who were on the outside, but to those who were on the inside, what was being said or enacted in their ritual made clear sense.

This is the idea here: a secret impossible to penetrate, not a puzzle that is difficult to solve. What is crystal clear to those on the inside is unintelligible to those who are on the outside.

In like manner, to those who have received the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit has joined with the spirit in man, adding a dimension to their lives that they previously did not have (I Corinthians 2:11-12). So then, things that are crystal clear to them are unintelligible to those who do not have this added dimension. Thus, Paul says, the things of the Spirit have been revealed by God.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Satan (Part 3)

1 Corinthians 3:19

As wise as we might think we are, our light is not even a candle compared to what God's light is like. His light shines like the sun. Our wisdom is barely a flicker. So we do well not to think that we are smarter than God in any way.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Preventing Deception

Related Topics: God's Wisdom | Man's Wisdom | Wisdom of Man


 

James 3:17-18

James concludes chapter 3 by describing the wisdom that comes only from Almighty God. It is the bit and rudder by which we can effectively gain control of our speech. Godly wisdom begins in the heart, replacing the self-indulgent human motivations with purity, peacefulness, gentleness, yieldedness, mercy, goodness, fairness, and sincerity. Words that employ these godly attributes contrast to the raging winds that fan flames of war toward total destruction. The apostle does not allow us any time to spend in the middle; our words should be fresh and trustworthy, without the bitter and shocking elements of a sharp tongue.

In Matthew 12:34, Christ says, "For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." The real issue is that our words reveal the essence of our hearts. They will tell whether we are motivated by the earthly wisdom of human desire or by the godly wisdom of the fruit of the Spirit. Unkind words reveal an unkind heart, and kind words, a kind heart.

Staff
Are You Sharp-Tongued? (Part Two)


 




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