PROFESSING THEMSELVES TO BE WISE
Both the Old Testament and the New
lay great stress on wisdom. The Old Testament includes books that are called
"wisdom literature," including Job and Proverbs. Some form of the
word "wisdom" appears in every chapter of the book of Proverbs. That
great book of wisdom affirms: "Happy is the man who finds wisdom, and the
man who gets understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the
merchandise of silver and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious
than rubies: and all things that you can desire are not to be compared with
her. Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and
honor. She is a tree of life to them who lay hold upon her: and happy is
everyone who retains her" (Prov. 3:13-18).
The book of James resembles in many
ways the wisdom literature of the Old Testament. For example, James has many
short, concise sayings like the Proverbs of Solomon. James says: "A double
minded man is unstable in all his ways" (Jas. 1:8). He also says:
"Even so faith, if it has not works, is dead, being alone" (Jas.
2:17). In addition, James emphasizes wisdom. "If any man lack wisdom, let
him ask of God, who gives to all men liberally, and upbraids not; and it shall
be given him" (Jas. 1:5). James contrasts two kinds of wisdom - the wisdom
from above and the wisdom not from above. He asked his readers: "Who is a
wise man and endowed with knowledge among you? Let him show out of a good
conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envying
and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This
wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where
envying and strife exist, there will be confusion and every evil work. But the
wisdom that is from above is fire pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be
entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without
hypocrisy" (Jas. 3:13-18).
The Apostle Paul also speaks of two
kinds of wisdom - the wisdom of God and the wisdom of the world. He quoted
these words from the prophecy of Isaiah: "I will destroy the wisdom of the
wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent." He then
asked the Corinthians a series of questions. "Where is the wise? Where is
the disputer of this world? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the
world?" He concluded: "For after that in the wisdom of God the world
by its wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to
save them who believe" (1 Cor. 1:19-21). Even those things that men think
of as being foolish on God's part are wiser than men (1 Cor. 1:25).
The Gentiles in ancient Rome
"knew God," but "glorified him not as God, neither were
thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish hearts were
darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools" (Rom.
1:21-22). A study of the history of ancient Rome should convince any honest
person of the corruption of that nation during the first century. They were
"filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness,
maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, etc."
(Rom. 1:29-30). There probably is not a sin you can imagine that was not
rampant in ancient Rome. Our study today will focus on the theme:
"Professing Themselves to Be Wise."
One of the great evils in Rome was
the prevalence of divorce. Some of the women in Rome calculated their age on
the basis of the number of marriages they had contracted. There were women in
Rome who had been married thirty times, more than Elizabeth Taylor, if you can
imagine that. How did such rampant immorality affect the children who were born
into such relationships? Is it possible some of the children never knew who their
parents were? Other evils characterized Roman society in the first century and
afterwards. There were many prominent philosophers in Rome, but their influence
seems to have made no difference with the ungodliness that prevailed.
The most influential secular
philosophers in the history of the world were Plato and Aristotle - both
ancient Greek philosophers. I seriously doubt that any educated person would
question whether Plato was the most influential secular philosopher who ever
lived. It would be difficult, if not impossible, for a person to earn a degree
in almost any field without reading some of Plato's literary productions.
Plato's writings are required reading in English, in education, in sociology
and in almost every other academic discipline. And frankly, I have always been
amazed at some of Plato's observations. For example, Plato did not believe a
nation could be strong unless its citizens believed in God.
In spite of his brilliance, Plato
held some weird and unreasonable views of marriage. In his book, The
Story of Philosophy (Garden City, NY: Garden City Publishing,
1927), Dr. Will Durant, a historian of philosophy, outlines some of Plato's
beliefs about the family. Plato believed that only the very wise in society
should be in positions of power. He referred to them as "guardians."
They would have not wives. "Their communism is to be of women as well as
goods.... They are to be devoted not to a woman but to the community. Even
their children shall not be specifically or distinguishably theirs; all
children shall be taken from mothers at birth and brought up in common; their
particular parentage will be lost in the scuffle" (pp. 43-44).
In very simple language, wives were
to be common and children were to be common. Do you see how such utter
foolishness differs from the teaching of scripture and the almost universal
experience of the human family? Men who are not devoted to their wives and
children become irresponsible rogues and rascals. They take no responsibility
for the children they father. Incidentally, some of that is happening in our
great nation. There are young men who father children and have little or
nothing to do with those children. Do you remember what Paul wrote about a
man's taking care of family responsibilities? "If any provide not for his
own, especially those of his own house, he has denied the faith, and is worse
than an infidel" (1 Tim. 5:8). I am not telling you that the young men who
irresponsibly father children in our day learned their immoral behavior from
Plato. Tragically, many of them could not even spell Plato. Many of them are
imitating what they see on television and in the movies.
But surely intelligent people in
modern times would never embrace such radical views of the family. Have you
ever read the Communist Manifesto (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1954)
by Karl Marx with a Preface by Friedrich Engels? According to Marx, one of the
goals of communism is the "abolition of the family." Marx explains:
"The bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about the
hallowed co-relation of parent and child becomes all the more disgusting, the
more, by action of Modern Industry, all family ties among the proletarians
(that is, the working class) are torn asunder, and their children transformed
into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labor" (p. 32).
Marx quotes the bourgeoisie (that
is, the ruling class) as charging: "But you Communists would introduce
community of women." Marx asserts: "Bourgeois marriage is in reality
a system of wives in common and thus, at the most, what the Communists might
possibly be reproached with, is that they desire to introduce, in substitution
for a hypocritically concealed, an openly legalized community of women"
(p.33). Marx believed "the bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of
course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of
capital" (p. 32).
Did you know that the Communists
tried Plato's idea of common wives and common children? They suddenly waked up
to the fact that the nation had hundreds of thousands of children with no one
to take care of them. The streets of Russia's major cities were filled with
abandoned children. The leaders in the Soviet Union changed their minds and became
very strict on parents. As brilliant as Plato was, his views on marriage and
the family were ridiculous. The Soviet Union proved that.
Plato endorsed infanticide. Dr.
Durant quotes Plato: "Offspring born of unlicensed matings, or deformed,
are to be exposed and left to die." Plato also believed in eugenics, that
is, the elimination of the unfit. Did Adolf Hitler borrow Plato's ideas? Plato
said: "The best of either sex should be united with the best as often as
possible, and the inferior with the inferior; and they are to rear the
offspring of the one sort but not of the other for this is the only way of
keeping the flock in prime condition.... Our braver and better youth, besides
their honors and rewards, are to be permitted a greater variety of mates; for
such fathers ought to have as many sons as possible" (p. 45). The American
Jezebel, Margaret Sanger, tried to put into practice Plato's ridiculous views.
There are people in our culture who would do the same if the law permitted it.
Aristotle, one of Plato's students,
was an extremely intelligent and talented man. He formulated the laws of logic.
He did not invent them; he simply recognized what every person should know
almost instinctively. Dr. Durant quotes Ernst Renan, the French infidel, as
saying, "Socrates gave philosophy to mankind, and Aristotle gave it
science. There was philosophy before Socrates, and science before Aristotle;
and since Socrates and Aristotle, philosophy and science have made immense
advances. But all of this has been built upon the foundation which they
laid." Dr. Durant comments: "Before Aristotle, science was in embryo;
with him it was born" (p. 72).
Aristotle did not have a very
exalted view of women. Dr. Durant quotes Aristotle's ideas about women.
"Woman is to man as the slave to the master, the manual to the mental
worker, the barbarian to the Greek. Woman is an unfinished man; left standing
on a lower step in the scale of development. The male is by nature superior,
and the female inferior; the one rules and the other is ruled; and the
principle extends, of necessity, to all mankind" (p. 94).
Any philosophy or religion that
makes women inferior to men is false, destructive, unchristian and
unreasonable. One of the reasons some men abuse women is because they believe
they are superior to women. Aristotle's beliefs about men and women contradict
the word of God and should be offensive to all right thinking people.
I have time to mention one other
philosopher - Arthur Schopenhauer - a very pessimistic German philosopher.
Schopenhauer saw "woman only as a shrew and a sinner." He imagined
there were no other types. Dr. Durant says Schopenhauer thought a man who
undertakes to support a woman is a fool. "He scorns the beauty of woman"
(p. 378). Contrast Aristotle's ideas and those of Schopenhauer with these words
from Proverbs. "Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above
rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts in her, so that he shall have no
need of spoil. She will do him good, and not evil all the days of her life....
Many daughters have done virtuously, but you excel them all. Favor is
deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be
praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her
in the gates" (Prov. 31:10-12,29-31).
Can you now understand why the
Bible warns: "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain
deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not
after Christ" (Col. 2:8)? Paul is not condemning all philosophy, but only
the kind that leads men and women away from God. The truth is that all human
beings on earth are philosophers - some good and some not so good. We cannot
live without thinking about the great questions that confront every human being
in the world. When we think about our origin, our purpose for living and what
happens to us after death, we are philosophers. If we are wise, we will base
our philosophy on the teachings of God's inspired word.
Plato and Aristotle did not have
access to the teachings of Christ. Arthur Schopenhauer did, but he paid little
or no attention to them. You and I must not make the same blunders. So what did
our Lord teach about men and women and marriage? There is absolutely no doubt
Jesus taught the equal value of all people. The Apostle Paul told the
Galatians: "For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There
is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male
nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then
are you Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Gal.
3:26-29). Christ does elevate men above women. We are all of equal value in
God's sight.
Matthew 19 is one of the great
passages on marriage, divorce and remarriage. The Pharisees came to Jesus with
a question. "Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?
And he (Jesus) answered unto them said, Have you not read, that he who made
them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause
shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and
they two shall become one flesh. Wherefore they are no more two, but one flesh.
What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder. They say unto
him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put
her away? He says unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts
suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. And
I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for
fornication, and shall marry another, commits adultery: and whoso marries her who
is put away commits adultery" (Mt. 19:3-9). I shall briefly summarize the
teaching of this vital passage.
Jesus Christ has all authority in
heaven and in earth. Whatever he and his apostles teach on marriage, divorce
and remarriage is binding on every human being until the world is no more.
There are not going to be any revisions or alterations of his word. What he
told the Pharisees is the truth and will confront all human beings in the final
judgment.
According to the words of Christ -
the Creator and Sustainer of this universe - God made all human beings male
and female. Paul makes it abundantly clear that males and females are of equal
value in God's sight. We do not have the same functions, but we are of equal
value.
God's pattern for marriage requires
that a man leave his father and mother. This does not mean he has to move out
of the community. In some cultures, it may not even mean he has to leave his
parents' home or the home of his wife's parents. During the reign of communism
in the Soviet Union, newly weds often had to wait from a year to three years to
find a house to rent or to buy. If they wanted to get married, they had to live
with relatives. But a man has to leave emotionally to start a new home with his
wife.
When a man marries, he has to
cleave to his wife. The word "cleave" means to stick like glue.
Marriage is not to be short time affair; it is to be permanent. "What
therefore God had joined together, let not man put asunder." Too many
young people go into marriage with the attitude: If it does not work out, I can
call it quits and find someone else. Guess what? In many cases, that is a
self-fulfilling prophecy.
When a man and woman get married,
they are to become one flesh. There is no doubt Moses, Paul and Christ had in
mind by the term "one flesh" sexual intimacy in the marriage
relationship. I sincerely believe it extends beyond that, but it certainly
includes that.
According to our Lord's words, a
man can divorce his wife and remarry only if his wife commits adultery. This is
a very strict view of marriage, divorce and remarriage, but it has been the
almost universal view of all religious groups that called themselves "Christian"
until modern times when men decided they know more than God. There are
denominational churches and some left-leaning churches of Christ that approve
of just about anything. They are not concerned about the number of times a
person has been married and the reasons for the divorces.
I have tried to show you today some
of the differences between God's wisdom and man's wisdom. I hope and pray that
all us will seek God's wisdom - not only on our marriages - but in every phase
of our lives. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the
knowledge of the holy is understanding" (Prov. 9:10).
Winford Claiborne
The International Gospel Hour
P.O. Box 118
Fayetteville, TN 37334