We Bible peeps oftentimes want everything to be good or bad, right or wrong, up or down, yes or no. When it comes to truth, such as should you cheat on your spouse? ? I think it is safe to say, no, the Bible is clear on many things. But what about things we twist the Bible to say what we want it to say because we already have an opinion about it (a prejudice)?
Examples would be "should I get involved in a relationship?" The world would say "follow your heart." Assuming if you are a Christian and the other person is a Christian and you both are not married, we often jump to, the yes or no question. But there is a third option, "is this the wise thing to do?" As I look back at all my poor choices in life, I grew up with the narrow-mindedness of the right and wrong mentality, that did not work out well for me, today, I would call it legalism.
In the Bible, there is an entire genre of literature known as "wisdom literature." Proverbs is the most famous of the wisdom literature, did you know that Jesus is the personification of Wisdom (the person of wisdom)? When we seek to make decisions and we ask "what would Jesus do?" We are really asking what is the wise thing to do? I know people misused this thought, especially when they want to emotionally blackmail someone into seeing things their way, aside from the parody of this question, what would Jesus do in the application is simple, what is the wise thing to do?
Years ago I was a school teacher at a small Christian school. One of my students was arguing with another student, they were yelling back and forth, both thought they were right in their own eyes, however, I wrote down on a piece of paper Proverbs 15:1 and handed it to the student who was the loudest in the argument after I broke up the argument. I said, "look up this verse and tell me what you should do in these situations." I said nothing else. Years later I ran into that student and she said, "I still know that verse, every time I start to yell and argue, it convicts me..."
Life is a continual battle, we often take one of two choices, fight or flight. It is built into our mindsets, but the third, wisdom, it teaches us, trains us, helps us minimize the effects of the Genesis fall of mankind in our world. Several years ago I studied this extensively, I realized how many of the disasters in my life were because I made unwise choices, not sinfully wrong choices, but choices that were not the wise thing to do. I wrote a book and published it, "Watch Your Step, Barefoot in a Broken Glass World" many parents and grandparents who read it bought copies for their young person. One dad bought ten copies for his kids and grandkids. It comes in three formats sold on amazon are; hardcopy, paperback, and Kindle version. It is sold at cost, I make less than a dollar per copy so it isn't about the money, it is about the wisdom, but with wisdom, I say, "the money helps."
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