Signs

 Everything has telltale signs if you know what to look for. If you’re in the market for a high-end Italian designer, you know that if the tag says made in China, it’s likely a knockoff and not worth the price being demanded as though it were real. Swiss chocolates are not made in Vietnam, authentic lederhosen are not made in Shri Lanka, and Irish whisky isn’t made in Poland. To clarify, I eat the first, don’t wear the second, and don’t drink the third.

If you know what to look for, you can tell whether something is real or not without having to go to an authenticator to confirm your suspicions. James tells us there are traits and telltale signs we can look for to determine whether a particular wisdom is from above. If you can identify the source, then you needn’t bother to riffle through it to see if there’s some nugget or morsel that’s worth considering.

If a teaching, a doctrine, an idea, or a creed is not anchored in God, if its origin is not the wisdom of heaven, then it must be rejected, avoided, and given a wide berth. Corruption corrupts. Deception deceives. You may think yourself too strong to be felled, as have many before you, but darkness does not beget light, and if you allow lies to take root in your heart in the hope that you might find a worthwhile morsel amidst all the poison, eventually it will show.

James 3:17-18, “But the wisdom 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.”

What are the trademarks that identify wisdom from above? There are a handful, and we will go through them to better understand how easy it is to weed out the bitter water from the sweet and the bad fruit from the good.

Foremost, the wisdom from above is pure. It is an easy word to understand, but contextualizing the concept may be harder to grasp for some. In this context, by pure James means untainted. By untainted, we are to understand that anyone purporting to impart wisdom must be in harmony with the word of God if their wisdom is to pass the test as to whether it originates from above.

The litmus test ought not to be whether it sounds good to the ears, whether it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, whether it bears witness to you, which is a wholly made-up Western concept, but whether what you are hearing is Biblical. Does it harmonize with the Word of God, does it echo the Bible, or is it something outside the bounds of the written Word?

If it’s not pure, you can skip all the other things because you will discover that if it is not pure, it won’t be peaceable, gentle, yielding, or all the other things that wisdom from above ought to be.

The second thing to look for is that the wisdom you are considering allowing into your heart is peaceable. Some among us look for reasons to be offended, upset, or otherwise jilted because, in their minds, it justifies them being contentious and disagreeable. Some people you just can’t please, and you shouldn’t even try.

I’m too old and fluffy to try to walk on eggshells, so the only metric and standard I will live by, especially when sharing my thoughts, is that they are biblically based, rooted in the Word, and peaceable to the best of my ability. Peaceable and agreeable mean different things. I may not be able to be agreeable all the time because there are things I disagree with, so I must make my stance known, but as far as being peaceable is concerned, I strive for it daily.

I don’t go looking for controversy or new foes. Unless someone is truly egregious and poses a danger to the sheep, I shy away from naming names, but that does not mean we do not defend the truth, the gospel, or the Lordship of Christ.

There are salvific issues that we must stand firm on because the Bible stands firm on them, and then there are non-salvific issues that we can discuss and debate, but we must always do so peaceably, with gentleness and a willingness to yield. This means that I don’t have to agree with you on tertiary matters necessarily, but I don’t break fellowship with you and start screaming Ichabod just because we don’t agree on them. We’re still brothers and sisters in Christ, even if we see some non-salvific issues differently. It’s okay to agree to disagree. Yes, I know, everyone likes being right all the time, but at what cost?

It’s not worth winning an argument and losing a friendship if the argument is not over a salvific issue you don’t see eye to eye on. I’ve seen too many people disfellowship themselves from other believers because of something tertiary, like wearing a wedding band or saying Jesus in English rather than Hebrew.

The children of darkness are coming for the children of light, and they will be ruthless in their pursuit. If we have to fight a battle on two fronts, both from without and within, we will lose and do so in a spectacular fashion. Not only does the Bible tell us what to look for when it comes to wisdom from above, but it also tells us the telltale signs to look for when identifying a worthless person or a wicked man. Learn which is which so you might not be caught up in endless squabbles leading nowhere.

Proverbs 6:12-15, “A worthless person, a wicked man, walks with a perverse mouth; He winks with his eyes, he shuffles his feet, he points his fingers; Perversity is in his heart, he devises evil continually, he sows discord. Therefore his calamity shall come suddenly; suddenly he shall be broken without remedy.”

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.