Posts tagged wisdom
Posts tagged wisdom
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Sometimes it really is as though we say “if only Jesus had read the blogs I had read, or had the teacher I had had, or seen that documentary on the history channel I had seen, or listened to these guys on you-tube I had listened to, then he would have known what I know. Then he wouldn’t say these things. If only he had known that James Cameron had found his tomb! Twice! Then he would know better. Then he would think… like us. Like me.”
But all that is nonsense, of course. Jesus Christ is God. And his wisdom is so far beyond the wisdom of man, that the two are not even worth comparing. The foolishness of God, as St. Paul tells us, (if there even WERE such a thing,) is higher than the loftiest wisdom of man. People may stand on their tippie-toes and point to heaven and challenge Jesus and his ways. But it goes only to point to the folly of people. It only points to their blindness and arrogance. It does not take away the fact that Jesus IS wisdom.
-Aj Neugebauer LCMS pastor
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There are a lot of times when suffering doesn’t make any sense.
In these instances, we HAVE answers, so long as we ask
the right questions. In other words, we DO have answers, just not to everything. The question we seem to ask most is “why”.
And that, most often, is one that we do not have answer to. But if the question is, “Do we have hope? Do we have comfort?
What is the solution to this suffering?” Well, THAT is a MORE important question.
And THAT is one that we DO have an answer to. The answer, of course, is Jesus. And his promise that there
will be a day when sin and death are undone. And that
suffering itself will be no more.
And we will be RAISED UP. And no matter what assails
us now, on the day of the resurrection to come;
on the day Christ returns;
it will be no more. Instead of groping for the “why's”; or trying to
console people who are suffering with the “whys”;
it is wise, (w-i-s-e), to instead
point them to the HOPE;
to the answers we do have; to the things we do know.
It is wise to point to Jesus.
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In going where you have to go, and doing what you have to do, and seeing what you have to see, you dull and blunt the instrument you write with. But I would rather have it bent and dull and know I had to put it on the grindstone again and hammer it into shape and put a whetstone to it, and know that I had something to write about, than to have it bright and shining and nothing to say, or smooth and well-oiled in the closet, but unused.
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Now I have to give a disclaimer: because you see, there are those who honestly believe that the Scriptures do NOT say things like the role of the pastor should be filled by a man and not a woman. And those are good conversations to have, and those are AWESOME things to ask, because you know what those questions do? They get us digging into the Scriptures.
But more often than not, the opinions that differ from God are not from differing interpretations from the Scriptures. It is instead simply that God says one thing, but my mind, and my friends, and my society, and my gut, and besides, “I know someone who actually is going through this stuff, or I AM actually someone who is going through this stuff, so not YOU nor YOUR GOD can tell me what’s right and what’s wrong about it,” and then, BAM! We are learning on our own learning, instead of on the teachings of the God of wisdom, of truth, and of light.
The more I know, the more I realize I do not know.
Listen to the one who has come from heaven. Listen to the Scriptures that also get their authority and validity from Jesus. Listen to them, not to challenge the word of God, but to seek to understand them in order that you may receive what they have to give you. Ask of them, but not as the Pharisees, seeking to tear them apart and supplant them with OUR wisdom; but instead let us go to them in humility.
-Aj Neugebauer LCMS pastor
