Wisdom Contrasted: Part 2 - James 3:13

Wisdom Contrasted: Part 2 - James 3:13
Written by LaRosa Johnson
Thursday, 27 March 2008

Now that we've had an opportunity to get an overview of our passage in James, we are now going to begin our verse-by-verse study. As we noted in our last devotion, James is speaking of worldly wisdom versus heavenly wisdom as it relates to everyday life. Our passage today kicks off the study by doing two things: 1) asking a question and 2) giving an imperative to those who do have the right kind of wisdom. Let us begin our study by opening our Bibles to today's passage, James 3:13 .

Quote :

James 3:13 (NASB) - Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom.

As we can clearly see, the first half of this verse contains our question, "Who among you is wise and understanding?" The second half of the verse contains our imperative, "Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom." We will deal with these two individually, and, as has been the norm in our previous studies, bring it all together and look at it as a whole. Let's dig in by looking at the question.

Our question is simple enough; James is asking his readers, who is wise and understanding? Well, what exactly does that mean? For us to get a clearer understanding of this question, we must dive into the Greek and embark upon a brief word study. The first word that we will take a look at is "wise;" the Greek word used here for wise is sophos (Strong's #G4680) and occurs twenty times in the New Testament. In its most common sense in classical Greek literature, it refers to being skilled in a handicraft or art, or it can mean accomplished or learned. In this particular instance, it is used in its more practical sense of dealing with honesty or practical wisdom. Our next word is "understanding" and comes from the Greek word epistemon (Strong's #G1990) and occurs only this one time in the entirety of the New Testament. In classical Greek literature, it is used in much the same manner as sophos, but in a much higher sense; that is to say, one who is more skilled and has a higher level of expertise. When the two words are compared together, sophos serves as a broad and general wisdom, whereas epistemon carries with it a more specialized and specific wisdom that carries with it the ability to apply it. With that in mind, we can now see that James is asking these believers something along the lines of, "Who among you has wisdom and has knowledge enough to apply it?" As you can see, it appears to be overly verbose, but necessarily so considering the point he is trying to drive home. What is that point? That you have wisdom and have enough of it to know how to begin applying it to your everyday life.

Since we already know that James is writing his letter to believers, we can then conclude that this question is also being spoken towards them and that they have some level of wisdom. With this being the case, James continues on with the second half of the verse, which serves as an imperative to all of those who claim to have wisdom and understanding. His command to them is basically to have them let their wisdom be shown through their actions. This reads pretty plainly, so there is no need for us to go into the Greek at this point, so we will take this at face value, as it brings in quite a bit of what we have learned already. If we look back to James 1:26-27 and James 2, we will see that this is exactly the kind of thing that James has already been talking about, but is just putting it in a different context, this time in the context of wisdom. What constitutes being a wise man? Walking in the ways of the Lord, which is what is being spoken of here. So, how do you show that you have wisdom? You outwardly show that you have Christ living inside of you by exhibiting good behavior. So, if we are to tie in James 1:26-27 or James 2, wisdom is displayed by helping the widows & orphans, not showing favoritism, and helping those in need when we have the ability to do so. One thing that is important to note in this is that all of this is done in an attitude of gentleness or meekness; in other words, we are not doing this to be proud or boastful, but doing it because it is the right thing to do and as an extension of Christ's love for us. The whole point of this is that we might live out passages like Matthew 5:16 where we are commanded to let our lights shine before men.

Now, here's a logical question that will tie the two halves of this verse together: how do we obtain this wisdom? We already understand that the source of such wisdom comes from above by way of the Holy Spirit living inside of us, but we need to know how we garner that wisdom that leads to understanding. Well, there are four ways in which we can obtain heavenly wisdom: 1) conversion, 2) reverence/fear for God, 3) prayer, and 4) Scripture. First and foremost, we receive heavenly wisdom when we become Christians, which is when the Holy Spirit takes up residence inside of us. Paul refers to our relationship as being "in Christ" and 1 Corinthians 1:30 serves as one example of this. Secondly, we begin to receive wisdom when we have a reverence or fear for God; we are told many times in Scripture that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom/knowledge, as can be seen in Psalm 111:10 ; Proverbs 1:7 ; and Proverbs 9:10 to name a few. When we see God for who He truly is, that opens the door for Him to begin to give us wisdom and a greater understanding of who He is. Thirdly, we gain wisdom through prayer, which we have already seen in James 1:5 , where we are told to petition the Lord if we are lacking in wisdom. The last area where we can acquire heavenly wisdom is through the study of the Scriptures where we are told in Psalm 119:97-100 and Colossians 3:16 that meditating on God's Word is able to make us wise. It is only when we implement these four elements into our lives that we begin to acquire heavenly wisdom that allows us to live it out in our daily lives.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, and it is only when we have that fear that we can begin to start having the wisdom necessary in order to live out God's holy Word in our daily lives. As believers, we have wisdom, but let us desire to have wisdom that is accompanied by understanding, which can only be obtained through conversion, reverence, prayer, and study. If we let Scripture be our guide, we will be well on our way to living a life that mirrors that of our savior. But let us remember that heavenly wisdom isn't the only wisdom there is, which we will begin to see in our next devotion. Until then, keep reverencing God and studying His Word!

devotion courtesy of Trailblazin Ministries
http://www.trailblazinministries.com/daily-devotions/03-27-2008.php