Wisdom

Read the series.

Where should discerning Christians get their information? Whom should we “trust”?

Arguably, Christians shouldn’t “trust” sources at all, other than the Bible. We should consult sources on different sides of an issue and always engage our critical thinking skills. But there’s a reality we have to grapple with: nobody has enough time to personally research every important topic. Even if we were never lazy, we’d end up with favorite information conduits we draw from on a regular basis.

We had better choose well.

The sources we consult regularly become our leaders and teachers to some degree, and we’ll tend to be like them.

He also told them a parable: “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? ⁴⁰ A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.” (Luke 6:39–40)

What we listen to, watch, or read on a regular basis influences our attitudes, assumptions, and biases.

Bad company corrupts good morals. (1 Cor 15:33)

Sermon No. 2688, intended for reading on Lord’s-Day, August 19, 1900. Delivered by C. H. Spurgeon, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, on Thursday evening, July 21, 1881

“You have dealt well with Your servant, O LORD, according unto Your Word. Teach me good judgment and knowledge: for I have believed Your Commandments.” – Psalm 119:65, 66.

When the Psalmist wrote these words, he was contemplating the goodness of God. In the verse preceding our text, the 64th, he sang, “The earth, O Jehovah, is full of Your mercy!” as if he could not walk abroad without seeing evidences of it, or look upward, or backward, or around him, without everywhere perceiving the Omnipresent goodness of the Most High. Whatever season of the year it is in which we take our walks abroad into the field of Nature, we ought to be in such a condition of mind and heart as to see proofs of the fullness of God’s love everywhere around us, but especially, I think, it should be so in these summer months when the fields are ripening toward the harvest and we see how God is fulfilling His ancient Covenant, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” How thankful we ought to be that the Lord thus remembers the earth and makes it bring forth the corn and everything else that is necessary to supply the needs of men! So let us bless God that the earth is still full of His mercy.

A sermon delivered on Thursday evening, March 28, 1872, by C. H. Spurgeon, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture’s eye hath not seen; the lion’s whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it. (Job 28: 7, 8)

In this chapter, Job is speaking of the hidden treasures that are to be found deep down in the bowels of the earth. The keen eyes of the vultures, though they see their prey afar off, have never seen the gold, and silver, and other precious metals which lie in the dark places of the earth; and the lions, especially the young lions hungering for their prey, though they will lie in wait in their lairs in the dens and caves of the earth, have never been able to descend into places so deep as those that are opened up by men who seek after gold and silver.

Yet, further on in the chapter, we notice that Job refers to the search after wisdom, and that he seems to say that, though men should explore the deep places of the earth with all the diligence of miners seeking gold and silver, though they should exert all their mental force, as miners use all their muscular vigor, and though they should employ all the machinery within their reach, as men do who pierce through the rocks in search of precious treasure yet it is not within the range of human labor and skill to attain unto wisdom. That can only be found by another and a higher method; it must come to us by revelation from God, for we cannot find it by our own efforts.