Job CLXX

 There is wisdom that is passed down from generation to generation, and then there is wisdom that comes from above. The wisdom passed down by word of mouth, although useful in some cases, like how to start a fire with two sticks and some kindling, how to sharpen stones to make a spear, or how to age a piece of wood to make a bow, is no substitute for the wisdom that God pours into the hearts and minds of those who seek after Him.

Eliphaz was repeating what he’d heard from his forefathers, from the generations that came before him, insisting that it was the only wisdom available to man, the only game in town, and the singularly accessible guiding principle. It was an earthly wisdom without gentleness, unwilling to yield, and absent mercy, and no matter how much his words battered Job’s resolve, it seems as though Eliphaz didn’t much care. There is a callousness to earthly wisdom that is not found in godly wisdom.

While some wisdom passed down through the generations is worth knowing, countless things deemed the height of wisdom at some point in time should be discarded and serve as cautionary tales. In hindsight, the same people responsible for building the pyramids were a bit off when practicing bleeding of sick patients, in the hope of making them well. While the mechanics of how one of the most impressive feats humanity has undertaken have been lost to time, bloodletting was a thing until a couple of hundred years ago. Just because an idea or practice has persisted from one generation to the next, it doesn’t validate its usefulness.

James 3:17-18, “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”

Not all wisdom is the same. There is the wisdom of man, then there is the wisdom that is from above. All wisdom is not the same. The Word differentiates between the two and insists that although the labels are the same, generally speaking, the contents are quite different.

Godly wisdom, or wisdom from above, has qualifiers. It is pure, peaceable, gentle, and willing to yield. It is not implacable, corrupted, antagonistic, or abrasive. Godly wisdom is also absent from partiality and without hypocrisy. If in the sharing of their wisdom you discover someone has an ulterior motive or a vested interest, back away slowly, turn around, and run.

It’s one of the topics my wife and I have had multiple discussions about. Whenever she happens upon some expert who insists that everything you consume is trying to kill you, my first question to her is, “What are they trying to sell you?”

If you’ve ever drunk from a plastic bottle, eaten with a plastic fork, put a plastic bag over your head to keep from getting rained on, touched plastic in any form, held food in Tupperware, or bought bread in a plastic bag, you’re as good as dead, buddy! All those microplastics are forming a helmet around your brain, and once it’s complete, it’s lights out! Thankfully, we have a product that will purge all those nasty microplastics from your body, and you can live forever as long as you pony up the hundred bucks a month to keep your system clean.

There may be some truth to the theory, but by their offering a product in exchange for legal tender to remedy it, I grow skeptical. The wisdom is neither pure nor free from partiality. What’s worse is that they use fear as a fulcrum to sway people into buying their product.

It’s not a new thing or something this current generation has happened upon. Fear has been used as an incentive for as long as men have roamed the earth. We’ve gotten better at it in our modern age; we’ve streamlined the process and discovered new ways of sowing fear into the hearts of men, but as the idea itself is concerned, it’s neither new nor groundbreaking.

Chaos and uncertainty breed fear; fear is disquieting, uncomfortable, unnatural, and dispiriting, so if we can create a product to mitigate the fear men feel, we’ll have a consistent customer base that we can fleece time and time again until the end of time. Voila, shelf-stable gruel in a bucket that you too can buy to keep your family fed, sheltered, and free from fear. They fail to mention that once you open the bucket and the smell hits you, you’ll take your chances with starvation, but money has already exchanged hands, the deal was done, and now you’re stuck with buckets full of stuff that looks like it's already gone through someone’s digestive tract.

There are nine billion of us on this rock and counting, every one has an appointed time, and nothing we can do, whether take fistfuls of pills, go to sweat lodges, eat kale, buy copious amounts of buckets of gruel, or abstain from fried foods, will extend our time on earth by one second longer than God has determined. Should you strive to take care of yourself, discipline your body, and be aware of what you consume? Most assuredly, but if that becomes the overarching purpose of your existence, and turns into a de facto religion where you spend more time weighing six ounces of chicken breast four times a day than you do praying, perhaps it's time to reassess priorities and understand that this life is fleeting, destined to end, but eternity is forever.

You can spend all your days ensuring you’ll make a pretty corpse, obsessing over every tidbit, fearful of things you have no way of controlling, or growing in God, in the knowledge of Him, building up your most holy faith, and strengthening your spiritual man.

The notion that one can perfectly balance the two, wherein we offer each equal time and prominence, is foolhardy and impossible, for one will always war against the other. The heart of man has but one throne, and there is only room for one singularity therein. Either the flesh resides on the throne of your heart, or God does. There is no shared custody, and a divided heart, like a house divided against itself, will not stand.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.