Wisdom & Light

Paul: Where is the wise man? Where is the arguer of this age? Has not God made the world's wisdom foolish?
[1 Corinthians 1:20]





Jesus: There is light within a man of light, and he enlightens the world.
[Gospel of Thomas 24]



Paul, as an evangelist, spent much of his time trying to spread his faith and discovered that the Jews would only believe if they experienced signs and wonders -- miracles, undeniably extraordinary events; whilst the Greeks and Romans expected clever arguments and persuasive logic. He therefore came to the conclusion that to the world of men the gospel was dull in its ordinariness and foolish in its message.
  Yet, as we know, the faith spread and thrived. Time and time again as we read the New Testament texts, a picture emerges of a community that is at odds with the world around it; on important points this community is  literally extra-worldly: a fact crystallised in Paul's insistence to the Roman community that they don't conform to the world system but think differently and a consequence live different lives. 
  And so they did. Their economic approach arose out of Jesus' parable about the generous capitalist in Matthew 20. They taught that a woman's beauty is not in braided hair and fashionable clothings but in good deeds and character; they stressed that a man should be known for his gentleness, not his aggression; they avoided political debates and didn't follow the latest celebrity gossip of the day. In gently correcting each other, they taught by example that love is not an adjective but a verb; not a feeling, but a doing; and ultimately they eschewed talking the talk, promoting walking the walk instead.


In writers' language, this is show, not tell. Saying "Lord, Lord" and "God bless you" doesn't fill an empty belly or help repair a dilapidated dwelling. These communities didn't discuss wisdom but lived it. In short, they became wisdom; that is, their lives revealed the extent of their transformation by God and their difference from the world. As Jesus expressed it in the Gospel of Thomas 24: people of light enlighten the space around them.

In short, you don't possess wisdom; you become wisdom, as demonstrated in the way you live your life.

This is important to understand, especially for us, we dwellers in a world of seemingly unlimited knowledge -- the so-called Information Age. Knowledge is not wisdom. Increasingly we see this confusion proliferating in students' and researchers' work: someone will google a search topic, find a relevant article, and simply present that article as an answer; yet the topic will not have been understood. Jesus was wisdom, just as a skilled carpenter understands intuitively how to craft a piece of furniture. Wisdom and Light; qualities expressed from the core of being.

Beautiful People, Ugly People

Your beauty must not depend on outward things such as hair-styles, jewellery and clothes. It must show itself in that calm and gentle spirit which rises from the inner springs of a person's nature
1 Peter 3:3,4 


Jesus said Why do you wash the outside of the cup? Don't you understand that the one who made the inside is also the one who made the outside? 
Gospel of Thomas 89

Let it be by your gentleness that all men know you
Philippians 4:5 




I remember one time when I was talking with a friend. She said, "I'm going to the salon. What should I do with my hair?" I thought about her question. I thought for a while. In fact, I thought about it long enough for my friend to interrupt my thoughts by asking, "Well?" 

I replied, "You know, I really have no idea. I'm actually a lot more concerned about what you are going to do with your heart."

My response was not dismissive, trite or trivial. It was honest. I knew where she was coming from, what she was trying to deal with; she had recently sought me out for some advice. Her idea now was that a new hairstyle would signify a new her, would go some way to wash away the hurt of her recent past. But we both knew that appearance usually flatters to deceive; any real change must begin inside.

We live in an age when people pay excessive attention to their outward appearance, believing that their bodies are who they are. It's not just hairstyles, of course, or fashion, or editing selfies, or getting a tattoo; our body obsession is all over our shopping malls, gyms, and every article and film with gratutious sex. It's also obvious in our all-too-easy dismissal of the old, the frail, and the crippled.

Interestingly, in the passages quoted above, the word 'braided' is used regarding hair in the original Greek, telling us that we are not so different from the people who lived back then.  But stop there for a moment. Why would biblical texts even mention braided hair? They mention them because our appearance is not who we are.

You may have seen Chris Rock's film, "Good Hair" which analyses the African-American hair industry from the premise that his children believed they had bad hair. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with braided or styled hair or even paying attention to our appearance. But there is a big problem when we pay more attention to how we look than how we live; when we pay more attention to our image than our thoughts; when we spend more time in front of a mirror or taking selfies that we do in resisting evil or showing care and compassion for those around us. 

The point of the ancient writers is simply that prettifying our bodies (our outsides) doesn't create beautiful people, it only creates beautiful bodies; truly beautiful people are created within, through developing loving, compassionate natures. It's what we do, not how we look. In other words, for Jesus, Peter, and Paul, beauty or ugly are how we live; beauty is a verb.