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1st October 2024
TuesdayReflection
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'John Piper'
'founder and teacher of desiringGod.org'
"Get Wisdom"
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I believe all men have this in common: that they want to be happy.
They do not all agree on what brings the greatest happiness, but they do all long to have it.
Goodness consists in finding happiness in ways that please and honour God.
God has established this world in such a way that doing good through faith in Jesus always leads to greater happiness eventually.
The more we choose to glorify God, the happier we will be.
The point of my message is that we should "get wisdom."
We should bend all our efforts to become wiser tomorrow than we are today.
What I want to stress is that we should never be content with the wisdom we attained through formal education, and we should not think that the only way to grow in our understanding is by taking more courses.
When the wise man says in Proverbs, "Get wisdom, get insight," he does not mean, "Go to school, take more courses."
Let's begin by asking why is it so important?
The wise person is characterized by humility.
The person who is proud does not fear the Lord, who hates a haughty spirit, and therefore can't get to first base in wisdom.
But the person who fears the Lord is humble, because he depends on God for everything and fears to take credit himself for what God does.
There was no biblical command to tell Solomon what to do when two harlots claim the same baby.
Therefore, wisdom must go beyond knowing and doing the Word of God.
Wisdom must include a sensitive, mature judgment or discernment of how the fear of the Lord should work itself out in all the circumstances not specifically dealt with in the Bible.
And here I commend not only faithful Bible study, but also regular reading of great books on theology and biblical interpretation, books that distill the wisdom of the greatest students of the word over the past 1900 years.
Now, I know what you are thinking:
I don't have the time or the ability to get anywhere in books like that.
So I want to show you something really encouraging.
When this was shown to me about four years ago by my pastor, it changed my life.
Most of us don't aspire very high in our reading because we don't feel like there is any hope.
But listen to this.
Suppose you read about 250 words a minute and that you resolve to devote just 15 minutes a day to serious theological reading to deepen your grasp of biblical truth.
In one year (365 days) you would read for 5,475 minutes.
Multiply that times 250 words per minute and you get 1,368,750 words per year.
When I heard that, I set aside the 15 minutes just before supper to read Jonathan Edwards' big book, Original Sin. And I did it in a couple of months.
Then I turned to something else.
I was absolutely elated: reading that I thought never could get done was now getting done in a 15 minute slot that would have been wasted anyway.
James puts it as clearly as we could wish:
"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God" (James 1:5).
The wisdom that leads to true and lasting happiness is not natural or inborn.
It is supernatural. It is a gift of God.
Therefore, if we would "get wisdom," we must pray.
Put it another way, think of the shortness of this life and the infinite length of the next.
There is scarcely any thought that will purge our priorities of vain and worldly perceptions like the thought of our imminent death.
O how cleansing it is to ponder the kind of life we would like to look back on when we come to die.
There is great wisdom in such meditation.
Therefore, think often of your dying.
There is one last, absolutely essential thing to do if you would "get wisdom": you must come to Jesus.
He said to the people of his day,
"The queen of the south will arise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold something greater than Solomon is here".
What an understatement. Greater than Solomon indeed!
Solomon spoke God's wisdom.
Jesus is the wisdom of God.
Others had spoken truth; he is the truth.
Others had pointed the way to life; he is the way and the life.
Others had given promises, but "all the promises of God find their yes in him"
Others had offered God's forgiveness; Jesus bought it by his death.
Therefore, in him are "hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge".
To know and love and follow this Jesus is to own the treasure of ultimate and eternal happiness.
Therefore, the command, "Get wisdom," means first and foremost "Come to Jesus! Come to Jesus!" in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom.
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This is an edited version.
The full article, and Bible references, is avaiable on request
'John Piper'
is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary.
For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Foundations for Lifelong Learning: Education in Serious Joy
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