James 3:17-18

Yeah, small. Okay, so James chapter 3, 13 through 18. I'll just read it from 13. Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in gentleness and wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes from above, but is earthly, natural, and demonic. And that was Miles's topic last week, that earthly wisdom. So from verse 15 there. Verse 16, for where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. There's our verses for today,

17. But, and notice that contrast, The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. So we have the butt and Verse 17 is the contrast to that in 15, that earthly wisdom. We're talking about heavenly wisdom today. Okay, Jimmy. Oh, and I don't have my, it won't advance my item, but that's okay.

So wisdom from above first is heavenly wisdom. It comes down from heaven. And that's what James means from above. In chapter 1, verse 17, he has every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, from whom there is no variation or shifting of shadows. Isn't that interesting how he ties 17 matches up to this chapter 3, or 117 matches up to 317 really well there. Every gift from above comes down from the Father of Lights. And here we're talking about wisdom coming down from above. That's a cool connection. Yes. Okay, so point two.

First and foremost, this heavenly wisdom is pure. It's the adjective hagnos, and it means being free from defilement, not contaminated. It's the same root as the word holy. Holy is hagios. James says, first it is pure, and that first is the word protos.

And it doesn't really mean numerically, but it means the inner quality or the essence of the purity is what he's getting at there, not in numerical order. Even though I might say first and second, I might say first is pure, then second is peaceable, third is gentle. That's not what he's really saying. He's talking about the quality of that purity or all these characteristics of heavenly wisdom.

All that follows, or flows, is from purity. Andrew, we have a question here. Uist had this comment. I grabbed this from a lesson I did way previously. He said, God is called hagios, or holy in the Bible, but never pure, agnos. Christ is hagnos, he is pure, because he went through this human experience and he achieved this sinless life and he was cleansed and undefiled while he was on this earth. So he maintained purity during that and of course God the Father, it's just his essence is holiness.

So that's an interesting point there from Wiest. Point C here, This heavenly wisdom is free from the defilement of a sinful character, or a sinful motivation, or the old man. It's cleansed from all sin and unrighteousness, is a thought from 1 John 1, 9. So I think you could say if you want to have heavenly wisdom, wisdom from above, first a confessed confess your sins and be in right standing with God would be very helpful in achieving that heavenly wisdom.

Second, it's peaceable, is what James says. It's free from strife and disorder, and contrast that to last week's verse 16 and the characters of earthly or natural wisdom. where James says, for where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. So that's a contrast from this word peaceable.

Okay, Jimmy, let's... Thank you, Jimmy. And just for the recording's sake, people who listen to this audio after the fact, I've got no control. Yeah, Andrew, can you hear us? My lovely assistant, Jimmy, is advancing my slides. There's something wrong with that. This is OK. Just let it go. Can you hear me? Yeah. Can you hear the class? Can you hear us? I didn't at first, but now I do. Did you get all that? Yeah. Did you have a question? Actually, I wanted to make a comment. The protos on the previous slide. Yeah.

Isn't that similar to what Jesus is referring to as the prototokos? the preeminent one. Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. He's not a first. He's the preeminent one. Yeah. And he's, he's first in rank. Yes. Or first in order, but not numerically. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a really good point. I think it's the same kind of word. Okay, I can hear you guys now. So I was gonna, were you trying to interrupt me? And I wasn't? Yeah, I was. Okay.

All right, so this wisdom from above, point four, and he goes on to say flowing from purity and then peace, peace of boldness, wisdom from above is gentle and reasonable, which is free from harshness, sternness, it's docile, Reasonable means easy to be entreated, William Kelly says.

You can with ease make petitions of one with heavenly wisdom. It's never stern or proud or impatient. James, again, highlights this by saying, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and will be given to him. That's from chapter one, verse five. And we studied that before, but it's saying that God won't clap back at you or find fault in you if you ask for wisdom. There's no fault in asking for wisdom.

Heavenly wisdom then, continuing, is full of mercy, and that's Elias, and this is Wiest who quotes Trench. I like this definition of mercy, and that is mercy has to do with the ministry of Christ in mitigating or assuaging and removing our misery. Our misery due to the consequences that we find ourselves in, in our sinful condition. That's a miserable condition and it's Christ's work to mitigate that or assuage it or remove it, and he has at the cross, right? And that's, I like that definition of misery.

Peter has in 1 Peter 3.9, not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead, for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing.

That's from 1 Peter 3.9. And that's a good definition of mercy as well, is it not returning not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead. It's not giving us what we truly deserve on account of our sinfulness.

And then Kelly has exhibiting compassion towards wrongdoers and returning good to the ungrateful and the evil. Next he has wisdom from above results in good fruits. And when I read that, I think of love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control from Galatians 5. Those are the fruits of the spirit.

Next, and this is the last part of verse 17 here in chapter three, heavenly wisdom from above is unwavering and without hypocrisy. King James Version has, it's without partiality, but I like unwavering better than that. Unwavering seems to be better as it as it is heavenly wisdom's counterpoint to what James writes in chapter one, verse six. And that's asking for wisdom without doubting. And as you'll recall, he says in chapter one, verse six, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. And then in chapter one, verse eight, he says, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. So that seems to better fit the word unwavering than the King James without partiality. Unwavering is without ambiguousness or it's without uncertainty. That's from Strong's.

James 1.7, again, has everything, every good thing comes down from the Father of Lights, in whom there is no variation or shifting of shadow. And that, so chapter 1, verse 7, lines up really well with 3.17. that we have before us right now, that variation and shifting of shadow that seems to say it's unwavering or immutable, that's God's essential character is unmutability. Then without hypocrisy is just, it's true to appearances. I think that's simply defined. So in other words, heavenly wisdom comes from walking in the spirit from Galatians 5, 22 and 23.

And then if you have, if you take on earthly wisdom, wisdom that is earthly, natural, demonic from two verses prior in James 3.15, that lines up well with what Paul describes as the deeds of the flesh in Galatians 5, 19 and 20. So we have walking in the spirit or walking according to the flesh is the thought here.

Or what is the spring source of producing this heavenly wisdom? Is it from a fresh spring or a bitter spring, as James says in earlier verses in 11 and 12? Or is it from the olive tree or the fig tree are we sourcing our wisdom from? And then I have just the note that obviously it's old nature versus new nature, old nature versus the new nature, if you're all in agreement with that. Okay, I have this, I created this chart or this illustration here, and it's heavenly wisdom versus earthly wisdom. And what I did is I just gleaned from various places from this James 3, plus a survey of Proverbs 7, 8, and 9, and then Colossians 2 and 1 Corinthians chapter 2, as what heavenly wisdom is compared to earthly wisdom.

So we have heavenly wisdom is from above. It is first pure, then peaceable, reasonable, full of mercy, full of good fruits. This is just verbatim from verse 17 here in chapter three, unwavering and without hypocrisy. It's the mind of Christ and the things of God, the depth of God. Heavenly wisdom is the treasures of wisdom and knowledge that's only revealed through the Spirit. And then in Proverbs, we get the information that heavenly wisdom is desirable more than jewels or gold or silver. It also says in Scripture that heavenly wisdom gives life. contrast that to earthly wisdom, which is natural, natural, demonic.

It's a philosophy, empty deception. It's enslaving. It's the traditions of men, the principles of the world. It's boisterous. Earthly wisdom is likened to a temptress calling out to the naive. Earthly wisdom is a harlot and earthly wisdom leads to death. How about that? Yeah, that's good. Excellent. And that's just me sort of piling in all the descriptors of these earthly wisdom and heavenly wisdom.

And that last line there, Andrew, leads to death, that is so connected with James, isn't it? Yeah, right. Leading to death, does not give life. Andrew? Yeah. Just in summation, wouldn't it be good to say that what is wisdom, but the correct application of truth? He's going there. He's going there. You're ahead of him, Roy. Oh, yeah. I can't hear Roy too well, but I think he said it's his wisdom, the correct application of truth. Yeah, and I think this slide, this next slide will answer that.

I've always defined wisdom as applied knowledge simply and that's all the farther I went with it. Miles in last week's lesson had knowledge applied and he had skill of living, which is good. And wisdom is Sophia in the Greek, you'll recognize that. But wisdom, I was wondering what the difference between wisdom and knowledge is. I thought a lot about that, and I found that the secular definition is really good. It conforms very well to how wisdom is personified in Proverbs 7, 8, and 9. to say the least.

So if you just do a simple web search, you get a lot of good stuff. And that's knowledge is gathered from learning and education, while most say wisdom is gathered from day-to-day experiences and is the state of being wise. Knowledge is merely having the clarity of facts, while wisdom is the practical ability to make consistently good decisions in life. And that's a good one. That ties up to what Miles had last week really well. I thought this is good too.

Wisdom is the ability to discern and judge what is true, right, and lasting, while knowledge is accumulation of information gained through experience, reasoning, or acquaintance. Knowledge can exist without wisdom, but not the other way around. Wisdom involves a healthy dose of perspective and the ability to make sound judgments about a subject, while knowledge is simply knowing. One thing these definitions leave out that scripture makes ties in a lot is the concept of understanding. It's very important. in understanding what wisdom is to have that word understanding. So I have knowledge leads to understanding, which goes on with experience to form wisdom. Or insight is a good word for wisdom. So that's just, I just wanted to define wisdom and You know, if you just do a simple modern day search, it's good. It describes it really well. Too bad they can't, in this modern day age, you know, define woman, what a woman is. Exactly. Exactly, lost that ability. But wisdom, they've defined that really well.

Where does wisdom begin? And that's, you see the answer there. You see it in three texts from Psalm 110, verse 10. And that's the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Well, and if the world would catch on to this, they'd be able to find a woman pretty easily. Right. Yeah.

So, Psalms 110 and verse 10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 1-7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. Proverbs 9-10, the fear of the Lord is, again, the beginning of wisdom.

And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. And there you have that, how scripture brings an understanding a lot, that epigenosco, I think, is that personalized knowledge that you really incorporate. You just don't know it, you personalize it. So some characteristics of wisdom. Wisdom is desirable, first of all, and vitally connected with understanding and learning from God or God's things.

We have Proverbs 8.11, for wisdom is better than jewels, and all desirable things cannot compare with her.

Proverbs 8.12, I, wisdom, dwell in prudence, and I find knowledge and I find knowledge and discretion. Proverbs 8, 14, counsel is mine and sound wisdom. I am understanding, power is mine. Proverbs 14, 33, wisdom rests in the heart of one who has understanding, but in the hearts of fools it is made known. Proverbs 16, 16, how much better it is to get wisdom than gold, and to get understanding is to be chosen above silver. And from Proverbs 17, verse 24, we have wisdom is the presence of the one who has understanding, but the eyes of fool are on the ends of the earth. That's an interesting one, if you read that again. the eyes of a fool, his eyes only go from one end of the earth to the other, and that's what he focuses on. He doesn't focus on heavenly things. All he's got before him is, you know, his yachts and his bank accounts. Yeah, that's an interesting point from Proverbs there, from King Solomon. This is adapted from J.B. Stoney, and this helps us a little, very well in understanding what wisdom is.

He says that there are two cries on the earth from man, two invitations, either of which man accepts. One is called, what is called folly in the sight of God is the thought of a great gain in the world. And that matches up to that Proverbs verse I just read. So folly is thinking about that great gain in the world. God designates her cry as that of a foolish woman because it has qualities of natural physical attraction and is subtle in its influence. So in other words, wisdom and folly, folly is this naturally attractive woman Whereas, and wisdom is this refined woman who is, think of, I don't know, the Statue of Liberty or that woman who holds the scales, you know, that sort of greater woman. So he's comparing two women. what he's doing.

He says it's of tremendous importance to which cry we attend to and are led by, and every honest person knows how often he turns aside from the voice of wisdom and listens to the voice of folly. The foolish woman of folly cries out to the one, to only those, who go right in their ways, and only to them who are on a right and righteous path. So in other words, folly is only calling out to men or women who are righteous or going about their path in righteousness.

J.B. Stoney says the world doesn't invite the world. There's no occasion for folly to invite the world because she already owns the world, is what he said. They're already in folly, right? Right, yeah. So the intention of folly is to lead the upright astray.

Proverbs 7 has the wisdom of the world is a harlot and cries to passersby. And you can literally read that in Proverbs 9. She sits on a stoop, and she's in the streets, and she's in the squares, and she lurks behind every corner calling out to passersby to drag them into folly. Wisdom, on the other hand, and this is from Proverbs 9, gives her cry, her invitation to men from the very highest places of the city, and she sends it out to everyone. So not just to the ones who are righteous in the past, but to people who aren't. So it's sort of like the gospel, as in the gospel goes out to all the earth, to the whole world.

So I thought that was an interesting point from J.B. Stoney there. Now we go into verse 18. So I've broken it up. I was going to announce that at the beginning, but I've broken up the two verses. into two parts here. We just looked at the definition of wisdom. Now we'll just tackle verse 18 here.

Verse 18 says, and the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. So back in what Myles covered last week in chapter 3, 14 through 16, it said of this earthly demonic natural wisdom, it said, It had the characteristics of bitter jealousy and self-ambition in your heart, and do not be arrogant, and so lie against the truth. Disorder in every evil thing is what James said in verses 14 through 16, but now he's making a contrast from that to this verse 18, and that is the wisdom from above, and he's tying this into What he had in verse 17, the fact that his first peer and flowing from purity is peaceableness.

And Constable has this peaceable meaning, peace-loving or peace-practicing or peace-yielding. Peacemaking is a good work, isn't it? And we are to show those good works. You know, James could easily have, you know, show me your wisdom by your works, or show me your heavenly wisdom by your works. So we wanna show this wisdom in our lives. And it flows from being justified.

And this is really interesting because this verse 18, lines up with Romans 5.1 really well, and we are justified and we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. It says, you know, in 5.1, therefore being justified, and what does justification mean? It means being declared righteous.

So I found that tie-in very interesting, righteousness and peace. Paul says in Romans 12, 18, if possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. We have both peace, the peace of God in Philippians 4, 7, and the peace with God in Romans 5, 1. There's two types of peace, of God and with God. So what is the source of us showing forth this piece or this work of peace in our lives?

And Kelly has this about Melchizedek. And this is from Hebrews 7, verses 1 through 2. And it says there, for this Melchizedek, the king of Salem, the priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham as he was returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him, to whom also Abraham apportioned a tenth of all the spoils. was first of all, this Melchizedek, he was first of all, by the translation of his name, the King of Righteousness, and then also the King of Salem, which translates to the King of Peace. So there you have righteousness and peace there in the person of Melchizedek, and who, this is a bonus question, who do we take the King of Salem to be? which is great.

Good, yeah, and that's an easy one. Much easier than, I'm gonna borrow this from Pastor John Clark, and that is, there was a Sunday school class with little kids, and the Sunday school teacher was teaching about things in the Bible and Jesus, and she said, now, Now, kids, what is this little animal with four little paws that climbs up trees? What is that called?

And everyone stayed silent. All the kids stayed silent. And she said, well, come on, kids. It's got four paws. It gathers nuts. Come on, kids, no, they still didn't answer. Kids, it has a big bushy tail, what is that? And no one would answer. Finally, one kid said, well, I know the answer is Jesus, but it really sounds like you're describing a squirrel.

So, I got that from a Duluth conference. The answer to everything is Jesus, but if I'm describing something else, you can... That's really funny, because that's what I always say is the answer to all these questions in your class. It's always Jesus Christ, you can never go wrong. And I put that in there for you, Jimmy, because I bring up that point often. OK, Jimmy, last slide. And there's my final thoughts slide.

So early in the study, we asked, where does wisdom begin? And that was with the fear of the Lord. But where does wisdom end is a question I had. And I thought that Paul gives some answers there. In 1 Corinthians chapter 2, the entire chapter is about wisdom. It's really fascinating.

And it ends with, 1 Corinthians chapter 2 ends with, for who has known the mind of the Lord that he will instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. But right before this in chapter 1 of 1st Corinthians, the Spirit of God has, but by his doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. Finally, to answer our squirrel question here, that the answer is Christ, In Colossians 2 verses 2 and 3, Paul has true knowledge of God's mystery, that is Christ himself, in whom are hidden all treasures of wisdom and knowledge. So that's our answer as to where this heavenly wisdom is sourced and where it ends, right? I can't think of a different end of wisdom than Christ himself. That's where, it doesn't go beyond him, if you all agree. Yeah, amen.

Yeah, so great. Well, that was a interesting class. Okay. I felt out of control. That's true. Maybe we need to practice during the week here with your computer and do some stuff. Yeah, I'll look at the, Oh, you can set up between your computers at home, you know, try to do a, you know, do a zoom class through that or call us and we do it with Roy or myself or somebody. Yeah, and I think what it is, I think it's the security settings, you know, it's not allowing that, okay, patient to come through, but I can't figure that out on the fly.

So, all right. Great. Be glad to work with you if you want on that end. Yeah, yeah, work with Roy, that'd be great. Great, great. So, well, thanks. I'll close up real quick in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for this studying wisdom, and we thank you that you You make known all things to us in your word. And we just pray that that word will seed in our hearts and that we'll just, we'll have a good week. And in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Amen.