Wisdom

Review: Walking the Way of the Wise

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Cover image of "Walking the Way of the Wise" by Mitchell L. Chase

Walking the Way of the Wise (Essential Studies in Biblical Theology), Mitchell L. Chase. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514010914) 2025.

Summary: Traces the idea of wisdom in scripture and how integral it is to walking well with God in covenant relationship.

For most of us, when we think of Wisdom in connection with the Bible, we think of the Wisdom literature. Three books stand out: Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. We might add some of the psalms, perhaps the Song of Songs. Then some might even add James. While these books are of the “genre” of Wisdom literature, Mitchell L. Chase proposes that wisdom runs through the whole storyline of the Bible. An adequate theology of wisdom must encompass the whole Bible.. In this book, Chase offers an outline of the contours of such a theology.

It is a story that begins in the Garden. God wanted Adam and Eve to be wise in knowing good and evil through trusting obedience. Instead, they chose the folly of moral autonomy in a quest for wisdom apart from God. Now the divine wisdom that created the world would be needed to save it. Before continuing the storyline of Genesis, Chase considers our need for wisdom amidst suffering in the ancient story of Job. Then we turn to Abraham and his descendants, including the children of Israel in the exodus. We observe the wisdom of trusting obedience that saves Egypt in famine, and the consequences of giving way to fear when Israel heeds the bad report of the spies rather than trust God’s power to give them the land.

Eventually, under Joshua, Israel enters the land. As he passes the torch to the next generation, Joshua exhorts them to live by God’s law. This was wisdom for enjoying the covenant relationship God had established with Israel to be their King and enjoy his protection. But they would have none of it and rebelled. Rejecting God, they had no king and pursued the folly of doing what was right in their own eyes, becoming prey to the nations. They believed only an earthly king could save them. In Saul, they learned that a king whose heart was not after God would also be a problem.

Then in David came a king who sang God’s wisdom from the heart, giving us many of the psalms. He sang of the wisdom of delighting in the law of the Lord and the folly of rejecting God. He sang of the holiness by which we may approach God, the presence of God in death’s shadow, and how God would guide all our ways in wisdom.

Following David, Solomon sought, received, and gathered wisdom to instruct both his children and his corporate son, Israel in living well with God. Then in the Song of Songs, Solomon, as tradition would have it, gave us wisdom for love in the covenant relationship of marriage, a parable for God’s covenant relationship with his people. Finally, Solomon offers us the wisdom that comes in knowing we will die. He paints our pretentious projects as futile against the transience of our lives, and commends the wisdom of receiving with joy the gifts of the day: good work and its fruits.

Israel’s history after Solomon is the sad story of pursuing Lady Folly rather than Lady Wisdom. Folly led to a kingdom torn asunder the fall of the north under a relentless string of kings who did evil in the lord’s eyes. In the south, a few respites of righteous rule were not enough to prevent Babylonian conquest and exile. Yet even in exile, God’s wisdom was manifest in Daniel, wisest of councilors and one who, along with other prophets to the one, the Son of Man, who would redeem God’s people.

At last, the one greater than Solomon comes. He is wisdom in the flesh, the way, the truth, the life. He renews us in his image, to live in covenant relationship with him as King over all our lives. And living wisely in Christ enables us to perceive the life that is ours beyond death. Thus, we live in the blessed hope of partaking of the tree of life in the heavenly city.

I love how Chase shows the wisdom of God for life that runs through the biblical storyline. Likewise, we see the folly of rejecting wisdom and the sad history of thinking we know better than God. By Genesis 3, we already know how that story plays out. Yet we keep falling for the same lies. Thanks be to God for Christ, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). Chase helps us see how all that treasure is ours in Christ. He helps us see how all of scripture can not only make us wise for salvation but to live well with God.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: The Message of Wisdom

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The Message of Wisdom, (Bible Speaks Today). Daniel J. Estes. London: Inter-Varsity Press, 2020.

Summary: A study of the theme of wisdom, primarily in the Wisdom literature of the Old Testament but also incorporating other passages in scripture including those in the New Testament focusing on the culmination of wisdom in Christ.

I’m not sure there has ever been an age when wisdom has been in abundant supply. In this work, Daniel J. Estes, an Old Testament professor at Cedarville University surveys the biblical material focusing around the Wisdom books of scripture: Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes. His method is to present and elucidate the key passages in scripture on wisdom and to allow these texts to speak for themselves. Very simply, he believes the intent of wisdom in the Proverbs and throughout scripture is to “guide human beings, and especially the young, in the direction of the good life, not as contemporary culture measures it, but as the Lord defines it.”

He organizes his study of the biblical material into five sections:

  1. The Concept of Wisdom. Through expositions of Proverbs 1, 2, 8, and 9, centering around the idea of the fear of the Lord as the beginning or source of wisdom, reflected in a life centered around obeying God and trusting his teaching.
  2. The Context of Wisdom. Here, Estes widens his focus to the rest of the Old Testament considering history in the law, history, prophecy, and in Psalm 112. Throughout the choice between wisdom and folly is clearly evident.
  3. The Conduct of Wisdom. Estes examines the teaching of Proverbs in four aspects that pervade daily life: work, speech, decisions and righteousness.
  4. The Complexity of Wisdom. What happens when the law of retribution does not work–when the righteous suffer and the wicked seem to thrive? Job and Ecclesiastes address life when this principle doesn’t work and how to live wisely, by trusting in the all-knowing God, and enjoying as it is given, God’s good gifts in life.
  5. The Culmination of Wisdom. Here as in other things, wisdom finds its fulfillment in Christ, who teaches wisdom and is the wisdom of God. To know him is to know wisdom’s source and to walk in wisdom.

While Estes provides lexical and contextual help, the focus is clearly expository and applicative. One hears in Estes writing a teacher who cares that his students walk in wisdom, and who understands how they can be drawn away from it into folly. In his chapter on wisdom in speech, he offers these insights in his concluding section of the chapter:

“Why is it so hard for us to be truthful? Truthfulness can fail for many reasons, but oftentimes it surrenders to fear. We fail to be truthful because we fear criticism, but then we end up looking like cowards when the truth eventually comes out. We fail to be truthful because we fear responsibility, but we end up trapped in a web of our deceptions. We fail to be truthful because we fear the personal cost of getting hurt, but we end up enslaved to the guilty conscience pricked by our dishonesty. We fail to be truthful because we fear upsetting others, but we end up missing the chance to provide constructive reproof that would actually help them” (pp. 121-122).

The book from beginning to end reflects a kind of exegetical and moral clarity much needed in our day, beginning within the Christian community. Engaging this work is aided by a study guide written by Ian Macnair that follows the passages treated in the text, aiding in personal study and group discussion. This book is a gem for those who want to learn to live well and wisely with God and others.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Living Wisely with the Church Fathers

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Living Wisely with the Church Fathers

Living Wisely with the Church Fathers, Christopher A. Hall. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2017.

Summary: An exploration of what we might learn from the church fathers about lives well lived, touching on everything from martyrdom to entertainment.

We turn to a variety of sources to figure out how to live well, sources ranging from lists on websites, to self-help books, to mentors and “life coaches,” to the scriptures. Christopher Hall, in the concluding volume of a four volume series, explores what the early fathers of the church, speaking out of a very different context than ours, can teach us about living wisely. Summarizing this four-part project and the focus of this final volume, Hall writes:

“What did these ancient Christians–whose thoughts and practices continue to be read, pondered, discussed, debated, and embraced today–think about the Bible, God, worship, and prayer? More importantly for this book, how did the fathers answer a very specific question: How can God’s image bearer learn to live a good life, a life nourished by the values of the kingdom of God, a life of deep and lasting human flourishing, a life filled with love for God and neighbor? If, as Athanasius puts it, transgression has ‘taken hold’ of human beings, and ‘natural corruption’ now characterizes the human condition, how can God’s image bearers be made right again–made right not only in our relationship to God but in relationship to one another and to the entire created order?” (p. 2)

An introduction explores the context of the fathers and the kinds of issues they confront, particularly our moral disposition and passion, concluding with the kinds of questions we might ask ourselves in the course of this study. Hall then addresses seven topics on which the fathers taught and their relevance to us:

  • Martyrdom
  • Wealth and Poverty
  • War and Military Service
  • Sex and the Dynamics of Desire
  • Life as Male and Female, and the Goodness and Beauty of Marriage
  • Life and Death
  • Entertainment

What Hall helps us appreciate is the distinctive message of the fathers, who speak the counsels of God from a very different cultural context than our own. For example, martyrdom was an ever present threat, one that could be avoided by an offering to the emperor, an easy ritual. Many refused, and died, even as is occurring in many parts of the world. A life of peace for Christians, assumed in the West, has often not been our lot and raises the question of whether there is any cost to our discipleship and where we might place our ultimate allegiance.

On wealth and poverty, Hall recounts a sermon of Chrysostom on Lazarus and the rich man and the issue of whether we live with discretion with our wealth, using it to bless and thus fulfilling the purpose of wealth in our lives and others. Hall helps us understand the pacifism of the early church, the uneasy change to more of a “just war” perspective post-Constantine, and challenges us to wrestle with the sometimes unequivocal refusal of the church to kill.

The following two chapters focus on sexuality, gender, and marriage. We often consider the ancients terribly repressed. Hall observes that contrary to the body-denying nature of gnosticism, the fathers recognized the realities of sexual desire, both how this might harm, and the goodness of marriage and marital sexuality. He deals honestly with the problems of linking celibacy and the priesthood in the west. He also reminds us of the significant roles of women, including Macrina, who might be numbered the “Fourth Cappadocian.” Hill also points out the uncompromising opposition of the fathers to any form of homosexual intimacy.

One of the briefest, yet most pointed chapters lays out the strongly affirmative life ethic from cradle to grave in a society where abortion was commonly practiced, children abandoned, as well as the sick and dying in times of plague. The church adamantly refused to abort, rescued abandoned children and nursed the sick, at risk to themselves. Finally, in a challenge to our modern entertainment culture, often fascinated with gore, we learn of the refusal of the church to join the celebration of the violent gladiatorial games, recognizing how such things might create “dead zones” in our own lives.

The last chapter is truly a capstone, returning to the fundamental questions of how we live well. We learn of how the fathers diagnosed our problem of disordered loves and the disciplines of askesis that allow the rhythms of grace to reorder our affections in love for God and neighbor.

This work plainly whets our appetites for the fathers, and their counter-cultural message that may re-orient our perspectives and affections. Perhaps this was a part of earlier volumes, but I would have welcomed an appendix or suggested readings at the end of each chapter to go deeper with the fathers. One might track down ideas from the notes but recommendations of good editions and starting points could be helpful.

Hall has done us a great service in helping us to hear the distinctive voices of the fathers — their writings and sermons. Not all the good books have been written in the last ten years! There is a durable heritage of wise thought rooted in scripture directed toward a concern good pastors down the ages have always had–how to help God’s people enjoy God, love their neighbors and live well.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

 

 

Voices

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Titian_-_Wisdom_-_WGA22907

Wisdom by Titian [Public Domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Voices.

So many voices.

All wanting my attention…

–the professional solicitor raising money for an entity I might have vaguely heard of.

–the advertiser suggesting their product can offer me security, contentment, sexual satisfaction, health.

–the pundit trying to gain more views and following by provocation, pulling on the strings of emotion so that I will keep clicking.

–the media personality trying to keep my attention by arousing my sense of outrage over everything from product defects to people who pose a threat.

–the politicians who play upon both my frustrations and aspirations to garner my vote, even though in the end, they may do little to address either, only deepening my disillusionment.

So many voices.

I wonder if they drown out the voice I most need to hear. This is a voice that doesn’t join the clamor nor tries to drown it out, but to capture the attention of those who realize that life isn’t found in the clamor. It is a voice that asks questions, probing us to explore the meaning of a life well-lived and what it means to live such a life in our broadband, two hundred channel, smartphone media world. It’s a voice that bids me to a life beyond being safe, prosperous, or hip; to ask the questions of what it means to seek not only our own flourishing but those of the neighbor, whether the one on my street, or the one with whom I share my planet’s food, water, and atmosphere. It’s a voice bidding me to a life of goodness, truth, and beauty, to work with skill and excellence and yet modesty, realizing it’s all but a small part of a larger plan. It’s the voice that pierces that clamor to help me understand the time in which I live.

I call it the voice of wisdom.

Where can we go to find wisdom in the midst of the clamor? I wonder if this is actually the wrong question. I wonder if perhaps the prior question is do I hunger and thirst for something more than the clamoring voices are offering? Do I value wisdom more than a flush bank account and all the baubles of affluence by which we are lured? Do I tremble when I realize the capacity I have for both great good and great folly, and that somehow I am accountable, whether to God, myself, or simply the rest of humanity, what the writer of Proverbs might have called, “the fear of the Lord?”

Alan Jacobs has written recently of the demise of the Christian intellectual, the long history of whom stretches from Augustine and Aquinas to C.S. Lewis and Reinhold Niebuhr. Now I will be the first to admit that not all intellectuals are wise, as I warned my son in his youth that you can be very smart and not very wise. But I wonder in the distraction of the clamor if we have lost sight of the value of the wise voices who may help us interpret the times and how we might live well in them. I equally wonder if such voices have retreated from the public square because they have been shouted down as anachronisms from a benighted past.

Perhaps the beginning is to listen for the voices of wisdom among us…

–it could be an elder in a senior facility, who has seen a good deal of life, and while failing of body retains the wisdom of years.

–perhaps it is found in the lives of those who have suffered, who know the loss of what others count precious, and the qualities of character and the intangibles of goodness that remain.

–there are the religious teachers among us–not the big flashy media personalities–but those who combine prayer and reflection on sacred scripture with caring for people in all the exigencies of life.

–and there are the voices inscribed, whether the writers of sacred scripture, or those who have thought deeply on the human condition.

Proverbs 8:1-3 speaks of “Lady Wisdom” in these words:

Does not wisdom call?
    Does not understanding raise her voice?
On the heights beside the way,
    at the crossroads she takes her stand;
beside the gates in front of the town,
    at the entrance of the portals she cries aloud (ESV)

The matter is not the lack of wisdom for Lady Wisdom may be found wherever we look. The question is will we hear her voice in the clamor of so many.

Voices.

[Acknowledgement: my thanks for the inspiration for this post go to Pastor Rich and a conversation with a real life Sophia.]

Review: Called to Be Saints: An Invitation to Christian Maturity

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Called to Be Saints: An Invitation to Christian Maturity
Called to Be Saints: An Invitation to Christian Maturity by Gordon T. Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book might change your thinking about “sainthood”. Sometimes, we conceive saints as these unworldly, serious, ascetic, and somewhat odd creatures. Gordon Smith would propose instead that being a saint is something to which all of us are called and what this means is growth into Christian maturity–a kind of perfection of holiness that isn’t perfectionism but rather a kind of completeness or wholeness of life.

This is especially important for many evangelicals, who may excel at seeing people come to faith but have little idea of how to direct them into becoming holy (or sanctified, a word drawn from the same root as saint–in other words, saintified). Most often, since we do the crisis experience of conversion so well, we simply propose additional crisis experiences. Smith proposes a different route.

Smith begins with what he sees as the essence of the Christian life, which is union with Christ. To be in Christ is to be united with Christ through his Spirit, which is a profoundly humbling thing that promotes our dependence upon Christ, our focus on the person and work of Christ, and our Spirit-enabled obedience of faith. In a later appendix, Smith applies this to the scholarly life, which is a life grounded in prayerful dependence upon Christ and illumined by Christ.

Smith then talks about four expressions of holiness that might surprise you. The first of these is wisdom, the practical understanding and knowledge of how to live well in the fear of the Lord. This can be expressed as having the mind of Christ, of seeing all of life through the lenses of creation, fall, and Christ’s redemptive work. Wisdom that understands the cross understands suffering in light of the cross.

The second expression of holiness is vocational holiness. By this, Smith means a life of good work that flows out of a sense of being called both into union with Christ, and into the world. Vocational holiness understands our agency in the world as fallen but redeemed image-bearers of God. It involves self-understanding of our temperament, skills, gifts and situation and lives in hopeful realism throughout the seasons of one’s life.

The third expression of holiness is social holiness expressed in our love for others in the communities to which we are called. This will find expression in radical hospitality where we welcome each other as we have been welcomed in Christ, forbearance, forgiveness and reconciliation, and in generous service to others. All of these are formed in the worship, teaching, and witness of our churches.

Finally, and surprisingly, Smith speaks of joyful holiness–the ordering of our emotional lives around our hope in Christ. He sees these particularly worked out in the practices of worship, friendship, and sabbath. This last is especially radical because in sabbath, we trust that while we must rest God doesn’t and his work is prior to and over ours.

The book concludes with two extended appendices, one addressed to applying these truths to the life of the church, and the other to the life of the academy, particularly, but not exclusively the Christian university and seminary.

I came away from this book with a different rubric for thinking about Christian maturity that is neither obsessed with sin nor activity, but rather in the kind of person we become in union with Christ–wise, called, loving, and joyful. That is a kind of “sainthood” that seems quite attractive, and one to which all, and not simply some “spiritual elite”, might aspire.

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Review: Hear, My Son: Teaching & Learning in Proverbs 1-9

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Hear, My Son: Teaching & Learning in Proverbs 1-9
Hear, My Son: Teaching & Learning in Proverbs 1-9 by Daniel J. Estes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Proverbs 1 to 9 is an extended address on the value of wisdom from a father or elder teacher to a son or student that introduces the wisdom sayings of the remainder of Proverbs. Daniel J. Estes has taken a novel approach to this literature and written a monograph exploring the philosophy and practice of teaching and learning reflected in this instruction given in these chapters. It is part of the New Studies in Biblical Theology series of monographs.

That may sound like dry, stodgy stuff but what Estes does is outline in a very straightforward fashion what we might learn from these texts about teaching and learning. The book is not an exposition of Proverbs 1 to 9 but rather a study of this discourse through the lens of what it teaches about education.

Here is the outline of the book. After an introduction describing and giving a rationale for this study, Estes looks first at the worldview underlying Proverbs as one seeing the universe as God’s creation, one with a moral order and rationality that reflect the character of God, and thus implying a proper reverence for God by humans and other creatures. He then turns to values for education, of which the top one is wisdom which is understanding how to live well and in accord with God’s order in the world, teachability, righteousness and life. Then follows a consideration of education’s goals: commitment on the part of the learner, growth in character, competence in living, protection from folly and its consequences, prosperity and the knowledge of God.

The next sections turn to the nuts and bolts of education. Proverbs 1-9 describes a threefold curriculum of learning through observation of the world, through instruction in traditional wisdom passed along, and through revealed truth from God. He then turns to the educational process evident in this discourse which includes an address (“hear, my son”), description of the wise and foolish, various forms of commands, incentives, and an invitation to embrace the teaching. This then leads to a consideration of the role of teacher and learner in this process. Because the teacher alternates between expert authority and the role of facilitating wisdom’s embrace, he sees the teacher as functioning as a knowledgeable guide in the learning process. Conversely the learner must receive, respond to, value and assimilate wisdom. Estes then concludes the book by summarizing these chapters and outlining avenues for further exploration as well as by offering few comments on contemporary education.

What I most appreciate about this book is that it articulates an approach to education that integrates faith and rigorous study of the world rather than bracketing these off into separate ventures. In fact, the earliest scientists studied the world as well as theology to understand God’s order. Similarly, tradition, history, literature, and philosophy need not be opposed to either theology or science but all function together as a comprehensive curriculum to teach the fear of God, the order of creation, the cultivation of moral character, competence and common sense in the conduct of life. Competence and character, reason and faith walk together.

In sum, this book is a concise work that gives fresh insight into an aspect of Proverbs–teaching and learning–that has relevance for anyone engaged in the educational enterprise and particularly those who want to think Christianly about how education is done.

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