James No.8 The Two Wisdoms

1 Corinthians, chapter 1, and reading from verse 18. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, the intelligence of the intelligent, I will frustrate.

Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. But to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards.

Not many, many were influential, not many were of noble birth, but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things and the things that are not to nullify the things that are so that no one may boast before him.

It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God. That is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. Therefore, as it is written, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.

Now as we welcome Simon and Anne Eden into the church sanctuary again, they brought little Hannah here and I want to ask them in the name of the Lord certain questions. Simon and Anne, is it your wish to ask the prayers of these people in the tabernacle so that your little girl may come to know the Lord Jesus as Savior? Yes. And it's your desire to give thanks to God for granting to you this little life? Yes.

And do you promise as best you can to so create a family background that this little girl will ultimately, when she reaches years of maturity, come to put her trust in the Lord Jesus? Let's just bow our heads in prayer. Our loving God and Father, we come to you on this very special Sunday when many of us are thanking you for the gift of a good and godly mother and we bring these two young people to you and ask your blessing to be upon their family life and particularly now that you have allowed them to have in their jurisdiction, in their family circle, this little life. We commend Hannah Dorothy to you and we entrust her to them and we ask for your richest blessings to be upon her and them.

We thank you, Lord, for a little life so perfectly formed, another miracle of birth and we ask that you will bless this little lass and as year follows year within your will, we pray that she shall increasingly come to know the Lord Jesus and trust Him as her own Savior. So we commit the three of them to you, seeking God's blessing upon the family circle, asking for your benediction, the blessing of God Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Now would you turn please to the Epistle of James and we're reading from the third chapter and the ninth verse, James chapter three verse, I'm sorry, verse 13. Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth.

Such wisdom does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure, then peace loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy, and good fruit, impartial, and sincere.

Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness, or as the A.V. puts that last verse, and the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. I want to address you this morning as we continue our series looking through this very practical epistle of James on what I shall entitle the two wisdoms and I take that title feeling that it is justified from the reference in verse 15 where you discover a comment made about a false wisdom which doesn't come from heaven and then in the 17th verse, allusion is made to the true wisdom that has the celestial realm as its source. So you see, both those verses throw out the concept of two different types of wisdom, thus the justification for my title this morning.

But before I go into these verses and open them up for you, let me set what is taught here in context because obviously on Sunday mornings we have visiting friends who therefore have not been with us as we've worked our way through James's argument. You will remember that a fortnight ago when we were looking at the passage from the beginning of this chapter down to the 12th verse, we were taken up with the thought of the tongue and using the tongue. That's the main subject matter in those verses.

James tells us what a powerful instrument the tongue is, how it could be used for good, how often it is used for harm, and he's very, very concerned that the Christian person is consistent in using his tongue for the Lord, thus the 10th verse where he refers to the possibility of blessing and cursing from the same instrument of speech and says that that sort of thing should never be practiced by the Christian. But why was James concerned to teach about the tongue? What sparked the whole thing off? Well, it becomes very clear, particularly if you look at the first verse of the third chapter in the NIV version of the Bible. Here is a piece of advice.

Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers. James is cautioning against any stampede into the preaching ministry. My brethren, be not many masters.

Why is he concerned that people should not, in a careless fashion, start to publicly teach? Well, a couple of reasons. The first being, as he concedes in the second verse, the teacher has a greater responsibility when he stands before God. He shall be assessed for the nature of his ministry that is exercised.

And then secondly, and this is what opened up the whole discussion on tongue, the teacher uses words. The teacher uses words. I remember once, I tell you somewhat humorously though, it was painful at the time, sending some claim into the Inland Revenue when I was literally a schoolmaster as well as a preacher in the north of London.

I'd had some work done by the dentist on my teeth and it could not get under the cover of the National Health, and so I wrote to the Inland Revenue and said, look, words to me are what tools are to a plumber, should you not concede that what I paid the dentist should have an income tax refund. And I got a very sweet letter back from the man in the civil service who'd obviously got a sense of humor, and he said, dear Mr. Sergeant, no. He was obviously a man of few words himself.

But it is true of course, that a teacher and a preacher uses words, and words are very powerful things. And James exhorts people not to rush into any occupation which perhaps might cause them to use words and words and them not realize the responsibility of their specific tasks. So in this first verse he's cautioning, I argue, against a stampede into the ministry, and what follows from the second verse right through to the twelfth verse is really a digression as he speaks about the importance of the tongue and the use of language generally as well as for the preacher.

So when you come to the thirteenth verse, he's really back at his starting point. He's trying to work out for his readership who really should be the teacher or the teachers amongst them. So once more I give to you the NIV's version of the thirteenth verse.

Who is wise and understanding among you? Who could be the teacher? Who is wise? Understanding's got the coming of the connotation in the original of scholastic. Who is wise and scholastic, scholarly amongst you? And the answer could well be, James in our assembly we've got a fellow who got a PhD from the academy at Athens. Shouldn't he be our teacher? Isn't he qualified? Or James, we've got a master of art from the University of Tarsus, let him be our teacher.

Or James, we've got someone who's got a BD from the seminary at Jerusalem, let him be our teacher. Is that what you're really asking? Who is the wise man who's endued with knowledge among you? James, we've got men like that. But James isn't looking specifically for an academic qualification, though no way is he anti-intellectual.

What he's looking for is a man or men. And who not only teach, but live and display and illustrate the words that fall so easily from their lips. So to the answer of the question, to the question rather, who is wise and understanding among you, comes the response.

Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. James is always concerned that we show our faith. That's why he says that faith without works is dead.

There must be some public exhibition of what you believe on an ordinary level as a Christian. There must be as a teacher an exhibition, an illustration of your preaching within your life for the pursuit of pure faith. Pure academic awards that does not carry with it a qualification in the school of sanctification does not allow one to be a teacher in the Christian church.

One of the most remarkable men that I have met has just retired from his profession as a lecturer in London. He is one of the foremost, if not the premier scholar in New Testament in this country. And his works have been recognized in many university faculties at home and abroad.

I refer to Dr. Donald Guthrie. I had the privilege of sitting under his ministry, he being a scholar, for years. And I honestly cannot cite you an example of a man more humble than that man.

Sometimes before the business of the day, the college curriculum and us students having to go into the lecture hall, he'd gather a few of us together for a sort of informal Bible study. And many have been the occasion when I have watched that man as he's reacted to the response of some immature student, as we together have studied a passage from the New Testament. And he has said, Mr. Smith, or whatever the name was, thank you for that comment.

Thank you for that insight. I find it very, very helpful. He is a man skilled in Greek, in Hebrew, in philosophy, in the whole system of theology.

And yet, he was so humble that he could recognize without being patronizing at all, the contribution of an immature 18 or 19 year old man or woman. You see, the person who is to be the teacher is one who by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom indicates his qualification. That's a lovely expression that you get in the NIV, the humility that comes from wisdom.

In the AV, it's translated as the meekness of wisdom. A good conversation, the way that you live your life is to be shown in the meekness of your wisdom. Of course, James was not thinking of someone like Donald Guthrie.

He got a much greater, a much more accurate, a more absolute example. He was thinking of his brother, the Lord Jesus Christ. Was there anyone who's ever lived who exemplifies, who illustrates this? A man who shows deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.

Well, that's just an introduction into what James is going to say. He's set down, if you like, a basic qualification for anyone who's going to be a teacher in a Hebrew or in a Gentile community of Christians. But when you move on now into the 15th verse and following, or rather into the 14th verse and following, you will see how the whole of the passage splits up into these two headings.

He's referred to the qualification for a teacher. Now he's going to make reference to false wisdom and true wisdom. So come to the 14th through to the 16th verses.

And here you can build up quite a picture of a wisdom that's unbiblical and unacceptable. And yet remember when James is talking, he's referring to some who claim to be religious teachers. But how could they be such? Didn't they realize that there was hypocrisy in what they were teaching, in their attitude of life, which disqualified them? Listen to verse 14 through to the 16th as I read it again.

If you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from heaven, but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.

Now there were some teachers in James' day who emerged from that identikit picture of them. You can work out from these verses, as far as false wisdom is concerned, where it comes from, what it consists of, what its consequences are. What is this false wisdom? Where does it originate? Again, look at the 15th verse.

Such wisdom does not come down from heaven. It is earthly. It is unspiritual.

It is devilish. James, I say, is concerned to contrast what is true with what is false. And he says that there are those who are handling what they claim to be spiritual principles, and they're so handling them improperly that what they finish up by teaching, he labels as false wisdom.

It consists of what is earthly, what is unspiritual, what is devilish. Or rather, that's where it comes from. Not from heaven, but from the earth.

Not just the earth, but from under the earth, from the realm of the demonic. What does it consist of? Well, look at the 14th verse and the 16th verse again. And here there's a repetition of two phrases.

If you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, drop down to the 16th verse. Where you have envy and selfish ambition, or as it's put in the AV, confusion and strife. There were those that James has in mind who in their manner of life were showing an envious and a bitter spirit.

They were those who were working for strife, for dissension within the early churches. And James recognizes the dangers of such people. Where does this false wisdom come from? Not from heaven, from earth.

It's unspiritual, it's devilish. What does it consist of? It consists of envy and selfish ambition. Seeking to promote yourself.

Getting the adulation of others. Working for your glory and not for the glory of Jesus Christ. And what are its consequences? Well, come back to the 16th verse.

Where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. Or as the AV puts it, where there's envying and strife, there's confusion and every evil work. There's disorder, there's turbulence, there's anarchy.

Is James overstating his case? Well, I reckon he's got history on his side. You see, if you go right back to the beginning of the Bible, you're confronted with a picture of two teachers and also two students. You've got God and the devil.

You've got Adam and Eve. You've got Eve. Why was it that Eve disobeyed God? Because she wanted to take of the fruit of the tree, which had been forbidden to her, believing that it would make her wise.

There was a wisdom placarded in front of her by the devil. She went for that. And instead of becoming wise, she found the fulfillment of the devil's promise, a grotesque caricature of what he had predicted.

She came under the bondage of sin. So did Adam. And also under the bondage of ignorance.

For God, to a great extent, was taken out of their reckoning. In the Old Testament, as you read through the story of Israel, you find time and time again that religious community is threatened by false teaching, by false wisdom. And the prophets have to come and deal with these people who are teaching that which is in error, bringing the people to a bad example of spirituality.

Well, says James, where there is envying and strife, even in the so-called Christian community, there is confusion and every evil work. If you've got those who are seeking their own glory, if you've got those who are bitter, those who are envious, those who are working for the, for schism, for cleavage within the church, then there'll be disorder. There'll be evil practices.

And in the New Testament church, they knew this. Why did Paul write his letter to the Corinthians? Well, because that church was split into several factions. There were some who were claiming to have greater insights than others.

There were some who reckoned they were more sophisticated, allowed themselves certain indulgences that others didn't allow. And Paul has to write a letter of corrective. And having to deal with this particular situation, and therefore when he opens his first letter to them, you remember in the chapter that was read to us earlier, references made to the true wisdom, even the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ.

James says there is a false wisdom. It masquerades as being the right thing. It masquerades as being spiritual.

But no, says James, its origin, its source is not in heaven. It's on earth. It's not just on the earth.

It's under the earth. It's not heavenly. It's diabolical.

And as a result it breaks, it splits, it fractures the body of Christ. Don't follow that wisdom. Don't follow those teachers.

That's what James is here saying in those verses from the 14th to the 16th of this third chapter. But of course he doesn't leave it there. He never does.

If he's got a negative, he's also got a positive. What is true wisdom, James? How are we to understand you in this particular area? Will you give us a picture of the true teacher and the true wisdom that we should be following and responding to? Well, he does this in the 17th verse and the 18th. The wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure, then peace loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere, peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.

And again, you can apply the three tests to this true wisdom that we applied to his example of false wisdom. Where does it come from? What does it consist of? What are its consequences? In the former it came from hell. It consisted of envy and an ungodly ambition.

Its consequences were anarchy and the breaking of church communities. But this true wisdom, well, where does it originate? Look at the 17th verse. The wisdom that is from above.

It is heavenly wisdom. It's good stuff. It's that wisdom to which James earlier refers when in the fifth verse of the opening chapter he says, if any of you likes wisdom, he should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault.

When God gives, he only grants gifts which are beneficial. Verse 17 of the opening chapter, every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of the heavenly lights who does not change like shifting shadows. Yes, concedes James.

There are two wisdoms. There's the natural wisdom of man, which has its origin in hell. There is the spiritual wisdom that comes from heaven, which is broadcasted amongst mankind in the concepts of the gospel.

And that wisdom is available not only for the teacher, but for the ordinary Christian. If he asks for it, true wisdom has as its origin, heaven. Such doesn't come from earth.

It doesn't come from under the earth. It comes from the celestial realm. But if that's its origin, if that's where it comes from, what does it consist of? And you get listed for us in the 17th verse, seven pillars of wisdom, seven aspects of that wisdom, which comes from the Lord God and is bound up in the gospel.

Let's look at those little characteristics just for a moment or so. What is heavenly wisdom like that wisdom which comes from the Lord, which is embraced in the gospel message? Well, James will tell us what it's like in the sight of God. It's pure.

What it's like in the sight of our relationships with other people in the sight of other folks, if you like to express that simply, it's peace loving, it's considerate, it's submissive, it's full of mercy and good fruit. What's that wisdom like? When we look into our own hearts, it's impartial, it's sincere. True wisdom, first of all, then says James, is pure.

It's pure. Look, when James was defining religion at the end of the first verse, or rather at the end of the first chapter of the book that bears his name, he says, religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless is this, to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. The first evidence of a man who's made spiritually wise is seen in the purity of his life.

And any person, be he ever so eloquent, let him claim any number of spiritual experiences, if in the sight of God he is not living and showing a pure life, then his wisdom is faulty. It's smattered. It's bespeckled with contradictions.

Says James, the true wisdom, and the wisdom that is to be illustrated particularly by those who claim, who have pretensions to a preaching office, is in terms of a pure life that is acceptable to the law of God. But in the sight of others, this wisdom is also seen. And notice again, it's not just an intelligent thing.

It's not an intellectual thing, rather. It is that, but it's more. The purity of life before God, before our fellow men, the one who is to be a teacher, or indeed even the ordinary Christian who's asked God for wisdom but does not have a public teaching ministry, is to show himself with these characteristics.

He's peace-loving. Peace-loving. Or as the A.V. puts it, he's peaceable.

Now that's in contradistinction, in complete contrast to some of the people that James was having to sort out in the early Christian church. They weren't peace-loving. They were spoiling for a fight.

Paul had this problem in Corinth, in Galatia too, as he moved amongst the churches. There were those who were polluting the gospel. Those who were claiming greater experiences than the ordinary Christian.

Paul has to come to grips with this. James has to come to grips with those who are adding to the gospel, saying that you must do certain things as far as fulfilling the law is, before you can be saved. These were contentious folk in the early churches that were disturbing the peace.

Now, says James, any man who is not living a pure life before God, any man who is not peace-loving on the horizontal level towards his fellow, could not conceivably be a man who has harnessed true wisdom. He's pure. He's peace-loving.

He'll go the second mile. He's considerate. That's the third quality.

Or as the A.V. puts it, he's gentle. And neither of those two words really quite captures what is behind the rather eloquent Greek term that's used. Such a person does not insist upon his rights.

He's someone who is easy to get on with. He's someone who doesn't lord it over others. He's someone who will lend a listening ear.

He's a considerate person, a gentle person. As I say, a phrase really captures the original there best. He doesn't insist upon his rights as he's dealing with others.

He'll come down, if necessary, to their level. And then another lovely way of describing a person who's been affected by this true wisdom is this, that he is submissive. Or as the A.V. puts it, rather beautifully, I think, he's easy to be entreated.

He's open to reason. He wants to yield if he possibly can. Once he's a young convert, full of enthusiasm, maybe he's been in the faith for a year or so, and he comes before his teacher.

He comes before his pastor. And he's got certain ideas, certain wishes. And the good teacher will be open to reason and yield if he possibly can without in any way breaking any of the principles of the gospel faith.

You see, he's elastic where he can be in dealing with others. Now, those who have a false wisdom, be it contrived under the name of evangelicalism, who are not peaceable, who are not considerate, who are not open to reason. These folks really have in effect betrayed the very gospel for which they claim to be standing.

Because true wisdom affects not only the mind, but it affects the nature. And it makes someone easy to get on with, sympathetic, all ears, particularly to those younger in the faith. And then another quality of this true wisdom, we're told that it is full of mercy and good fruit.

Almost the same translation in both versions of the Bible, from which I am working. So move on. That's easy to grasp, isn't it? It's without partiality.

Or as the NIV puts that, it's impartial. You remember how in James chapter 2, we've got this absurd situation of a rich man and a poor man coming into church, and they're dealt with with a degree of partiality. The rich one is welcomed.

The poor one is given a back seat. Well, that sort of attitude, the man who has true wisdom, he never illustrates at all. He's consistent, you see, in the way that he lives out his life, the way that he controls his office, his responsibilities.

He's sincere. He's not hypocritical. So then, here are the, if you like, the seven pillars of true wisdom.

All this comes from heaven. Now James is assuming that one knows the gospel of Christ. That you've got your theology intact.

But you see, he's not really once touched theology and theological concepts as he outlines the effects of true wisdom on the personality. Because you see, he's back again on the thought of works. You can have your theology right and your works wrong, and the net result is you moved over from the category of the true teacher with true wisdom into that of the false teacher with a false wisdom.

I wonder if you understand that. James endeavors to make it as clear as can be. Where does this true wisdom come from? It comes from heaven.

What does it consist of? It changes the personality within the several features that we have gone through. What are its consequences? Well, look at verse 18. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.

Or as the A.V. puts it, the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. Look how that contrasts with the 16th verse. Here is the result of these false teachers.

Wherever they go, with their envy, with their strife, with their godless ambition, there's confusion, there's anarchy, there's every evil work. The harvest is so different, you see. Again, is James overstressing his case? Not a little.

I could take you down the history of biblical Christianity and show you how people have wrongly used this word. I could take you, and I say not with any partiality in my criticism, I could take you into the history of the exclusive brethren, and I could show you how teachers who started off from a good biblical mooring so developed their teaching, became so hard and so embittered that they broke and fractured family life, scars of which some within our congregation this morning still suffer from. It's not enough simply to have your mind fixed on scripture.

Your heart is to be moved by scripture, so that you're a compassionate, understanding person. Here you are, you have a greater spiritual experience, or so you possibly might be led to conclude, than anyone else. Then what is your attitude to the others? If it's a genuine experience, then you'll be even more considerate than you were before.

You'll be even more peace loving. You'll be even more submissive. You have a greater understanding of doctrine, you say, my friend.

You've listened to the great preachers in London. You've read the books. You have got an insight into reformed theology down the years.

Here you are with all your knowledge. What should it do for you? It should make you the most gentle, the most loving, the most considerate, the most compassionate Christian that ever there was. If it doesn't do that for you, then it's not true wisdom.

Because true wisdom, it transcends the mind, and it affects the heart. I repeat, James is not anti-intellectual. He's not anti-theological.

James is a downright practical man, and he got his example from the greatest one of all, from the Lord Jesus Christ, a man who did deeds in humility, the humility that comes from wisdom. May we be like him, and may our wisdom be a biblical one. Amen.