Wisdom

Huw Williams | 20:16, Saturday 15 February 2014 | Turin, Italy

Do you ever read something that somehow lodges itself in your brain and refuses to go away? Something that haunts you, that doggedly refuses to be ignored and gnaws away until it gets more of your attention? Ah right, maybe it's just me then, but that's exactly what happened to me recently. As I began to read Larry Crabb's "Becoming a True Spiritual Community", I was drawn to the forward by Eugene Peterson. In appraising the book I was about to read, he said this:-

"The honesty and urgency that characterize these pages is a welcome contrast to the prevailing entrepreneurial spirit of our age that turns community into a commodity. Community impoverished Christians are ripe for such exploitation. Our need for community and our dissatisfaction with the community we are in (or looking over) provides a wide open field for the men and women who are selling 'community'. …[but] What is being sold, on inspection doesn't turn out to be community at all… The formation of community is the intricate, patient, painful work of the Holy Spirit. We cannot buy or make community; we can only offer ourselves to become community."

Blink and you miss it, but what we have here is a devastatingly accurate critique of much of what passes for community in many churches today. Peterson goes on to say that the answer is found in – "… turning away from the managerial and leadership skills that are held in such high regard in our culture, and returning us to the actual conditions in which true spiritual communities develop…"

That was the bit that got wedged in my mind and wouldn't be ignored. And then this week it came into a blindingly sharp focus as we looked at Colossians 1 in our Bible Study. I had been fascinated by Paul's focus in verse 21 – why does Paul emphasise our alienation from God in our minds? As we keep reading Colossians, it seems to be the case that the church is being infiltrated by some kind of dualism teaching, (physical = bad, non-physical/spiritual = good) and where the answer to all their problems is knowledge. The truly enlightened, mature believers will be those who can get the special knowledge, the big brain, the doctorate, the MBA.

And as I flicked back to the earlier verses, I suddenly realised that maybe this was the significance of Paul's emphasis in verse 9 on "all spiritual wisdom and understanding", because there is wisdom that comes from the Spirit and there is wisdom that comes from elsewhere. And Paul wants us to know the difference.

And as we sat in our little group, we reflected on how often we look to those with big brains, or special skills, or worldly success as those who can give us what we need and lead us effectively. We discussed how even our theological knowledge can puff us up, rather than produce godly love. And it began to dawn on me, that what we often pass for the spiritual wisdom for ministry, for leadership, pastoral care, evangelism and yes, community in our churches is often more in keeping with the wisdom of the business world than the wisdom of the Spirit. There is a big difference and we are often blind to it. It's just what Peterson is saying, and I am quite glad that it wouldn't go away.

Because here's the challenge – in all our ministry, in whatever form it takes, are we striving for the wisdom of the Spirit who stirs our hearts and opens our eyes to the life-changing, relationship-restoring, ministry-shaping, community-redeeming-and-building love of the triune God of the Bible, or are we striving for the wisdom of the airport bookshop self-improvement paperback? There's a massive difference, and I for one have been blind to it for far too long.