Tag: Christian living

Split scene showing an elderly scholar in a library and a young executive in a modern office

The Real Wealth of Wisdom

Leave a comment

“With me are riches and honor, lasting wealth and righteousness. My fruit is better than solid gold, and my harvest than pure silver. I walk in the ways of righteousness, along the paths of justice, giving wealth as an inheritance to those who love me, and filling their treasuries.” (Proverbs‬ ‭8‬:‭18‬-‭21‬ ‭CSB‬‬ – Read the chapter)

Do you want to be rich? Who doesn’t? Sure, you may be able to find someone here or there who will claim they are perfectly content where they are, but I suspect just about all of us could think of what to do with a sudden and great infusion of wealth—and I don’t just mean charities you would support. And yet, it is true that there are many ways to be rich, not all of which have anything to do with the volume of physical resources you control. Every single one of these manifold of ways, though, has one thing in common: they all start with wisdom. Let’s talk about it.

Read the rest…

More Like Him

Leave a comment

It is necessary and often good to talk about the challenges facing a marriage. Until we properly understand the nature of the problem, we don’t know what it is we are trying to solve. However, unless we have a positive vision and understanding of what marriage was designed for in the first place, we’re not going to be able to point things in a direction that can help prevent future challenges. Last time, as we started our new teaching series, The Journey of a Lifetime, looking at what the Scriptures have to say about marriage, we identified the problem: sin. This week we are going to look at what marriage was designed for in the beginning so that we can walk away from the problem in the right direction.

More Like Him

I’m going to show you an image of something, and I want to see if you know what it is? For some of you, this is probably going to be really easy, but a few of you might not have any idea. In fact, I’m going to show you a couple of different images for us to talk about. Let’s start with that first image. What is the thing sticking up out of the container here? Be honest with me now: How many of you knew this was a potato masher without being told or without cheating by reading the answer in your copy of my manuscript before the service even started? How many of you genuinely didn’t know what this thing was and wouldn’t have known without being told? Everyone else apparently is just confused. 

Read the rest…
Woman holding a glowing sphere labeled TRUTH amid digital networks and words including Integrity, Logic, Fact, and Falsehood

Truth and Deception

Leave a comment

“People, I call out to you; my cry is to the children of Adam. Learn to be shrewd, you who are inexperienced; develop common sense, you who are foolish. Listen, for I speak of noble things, and what my lips say is right. For my mouth tells the truth, and wickedness is detestable to my lips. All the words from my mouth are righteous; none of them are deceptive or perverse. All of them are clear to the perceptive, and right to those who discover knowledge. Accept my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than pure gold. For wisdom is better than jewels, and nothing desirable can equal it.” (Proverbs‬ ‭8‬:‭4‬-‭11‬ ‭CSB – Read the chapter) ‬‬

We live today in a world in which truth—real truth—is becoming ever more important. Because of the rise of AI and the creation of phantom facts and increasingly sophisticated fake photos videos it is difficult to know if what we are seeing with our eyes on a screen is real. This unmooring of our lives and our culture from truth leads to a degradation of trust which in turn makes everything we do more difficult. We need the foundation of truth more than ever before so that our entire culture doesn’t give way to cynicism, doubt, and a host of other civilization-destroying traits. In this kind of a world, godly wisdom is vital. Let’s talk about wisdom’s self-description and why we can trust it even when we can’t trust anything else.

Read the rest…
Archaeologist studying a map beside a coastal excavation trench

No Quest Required

Leave a comment

“Doesn’t wisdom call out? Doesn’t understanding make her voice heard? At the heights overlooking the road, at the crossroads, she takes her stand. Beside the gates leading into the city, at the main entrance, she cries out.” (Proverbs‬ ‭8‬:‭1‬-‭3‬ ‭CSB‬‬ – Read the chapter)

There are some things that take a lot of effort to accomplish. If you want to run a marathon, for instance, you are going to need to spend weeks training for it. Maybe months. You’ll have to commit to running every single day, and not just a little bit. You may start small, but you will gradually run further and further distances until you can accomplish the whole thing. It will likely be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done in your life. Finding godly wisdom…isn’t like that. Let me explain.

read the rest…
Woman holding books while a masked guest offers a goblet in a library

Are You Paying Attention Yet?

Leave a comment

“My son, obey my words, and treasure my commands. Keep my commands and live, and guard my instructions as you would the pupil of your eye. Tie them to your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart. Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and call understanding your relative. She will keep you from a forbidden woman, a wayward woman with her flattering talk.” (Proverbs‬ ‭7‬:‭1‬-‭5‬ ‭CSB‬‬ – Read the chapter)

With three chapters now left in this opening section of Proverbs, one of the themes we have seen over and over again is this strong exhortation for the reader to heed the counsel and command of the writer; for the son to heed his father. Inasmuch as this is Solomon writing to his own children, though, we can receive all of this as our heavenly Father’s attempt to pass along His divine wisdom to us. So then, how can we actually receive His wisdom? Let’s talk about some ways.

Read the rest…