Thought for Today

Genesis 2:16  And the Lord God commanded the man, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; 17  but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die."

Psalm 49:3  My mouth shall speak wisdom; the meditation of my heart shall be understanding.  

Luke 2:40  The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him

Matthew 13:54  He came to his hometown and began to teach the people in their synagogue, so that they were astounded and said, "Where did this man get this wisdom and these deeds of power?  

Sadly, there does not seem to have been a Tree of Wisdom. A mixed salad of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil with the fruit from the Tree of Wisdom would have produced a very different world from the world around us today. We live today in a world of great knowledge. We have split the atom. We have harnessed the immense powers of electricity, gravity and magnetism. We continue to make great strides in medical science. Yet, we still hear and read about what Jesus warned 2000+ years ago, “Matthew 24:6 you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.” All of those wars demonstrate knowledge applied with very little wisdom.

I thought about knowledge yesterday as we looked (in vain) for the Owner’s Manual for one of our appliances. Maybe you are old enough to remember printed Owner’s Manuals or printed Instruction Manuals coming with most major appliances. They were fonts of knowledge about the appliance. How to install it. How to operate it. Hopefully, how to make minor adjustments or repairs. If you are ‘of an age,’ you may remember the opening words of each episode of the Lone Ranger, “Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear.”

Regrettably, all of those thrilling days of yesteryear are long gone. Printed manuals are largely a thing of the (very distant) past. I wrote a few days ago about William Sydney Porter, better known by his pen name O. Henry and his use of irony. I’m sure he would appreciate the irony of the fact that all of the instructions for using your new computer to access the internet are available, not in a printed Instruction Manual, but on the internet. All you need to know about how to access the internet is to access the internet. Like the perpetrators of war, modern product suppliers often demonstrate knowledge applied with very little wisdom (or common sense).

Knowledge is like a tool. Wisdom is knowing how to use that tool. People were less amazed by Jesus’ knowledge than they were by his wisdom. Would Jesus, a 1st century carpenter, have known how to access the internet? Silly question, the internet did not and could not have existed in the 1st century. Almost 2000 years of scientific experimentation and development in multiple fields were required to make the development of what is today’s most ubiquitous tool possible, the computer. The same is true for the internet, for smartphones and many other elements of today’s world.

All of that experimentation, all of that development, all of our ‘progress’ in technology has not necessarily produced advanced wisdom. We still hear and read about wars and rumors of wars . . . on multiple battlefields in far-scattered nations. The same poverty, oppression and human meanness of the 1st century thrive in the 21st century. Our ancestors may have eaten the fruit of Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, but they sadly missed the Tree of Wisdom. They sadly misapplied or failed to apply the knowledge gained about Good and Evil.

Unfortunately, life does not come with a printed Owner’s Manual or Instruction Manual . . . no, wait, that’s not true. We do have the Bible. It is available in both printed and electronic versions. It is available in almost every language spoken on our planet today. It is just not read enough and its lessons are not applied enough! What are those lessons? "Luke 10:27 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."

It's not about the economy. It’s not about the technology. It is all about love. Love God. Love each other. Act like it.

Stay safe, love abundantly, trust God,

Pastor Ray