Is the pursuit of wisdom nothing more than the pursuit of
the knowledge of good and evil? Do we
wish to have worldly wisdom or do we wish to have godly wisdom? I believe that indeed wisdom is knowing good
and evil and that the only source of that knowledge and therefore, wisdom, is
from the Lord. When He gave the Law to
His people, they now had wisdom, they knew good from evil, right from wrong,
and the giving of the Law came with a promise, that if they followed it, they
would be blessed and prosperous and they would know the shalom of God. We have that same promise, that if we pursue
the kingdom of God and His righteousness, we will have all things that we
needed added unto us. Wisdom is
believing in His promises and living a life in concert with that truth. Good and evil is a knowledge only one who is
Himself good and true, therefore truthful, can provide, anything else will lie.
If you strike a bargain with a good and generous man, why be
surprised at just how good and generous He is to others? Here, the laborers who were hired early in
the day supposed they would receive a reward greater than those who worked only
an hour, but all received the same wage no matter how long they labored. At the beginning of the day they had been
satisfied with the wages promised but when they saw others receive the same pay
they had been promised they were aggrieved.
Do we take grace for granted? God
need not have saved us at all, but we often adopt the attitude of these men
after a time, we are looking for a reward for years of service and it is all
because we no longer consider grace to be amazing.
There is nothing wrong with the gift of tongues but Paul
sees that it has become a badge of honor for some and therefore is wrongly used
and valued in the church at Corinth.
This idea remains that for some reason tongues is a special gift more
highly prized than other less attention-grabbing gifts. Too often it does lead to spiritual pride and
Paul says that he would rather have prophecy as a gift because it builds the
body of Christ rather than being a gift that blesses only the one who possesses
it. We should not despise any of the
gifts of the Spirit, we should welcome them all, in particular those that are
used for the edification of all. Let us
pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts as Paul says here, and we
will have harmony and life in the church.
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