James 1:5

THE GIFT OF WISDOM

‘If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.’

James 1:5

This is one of the many beautifully practical thoughts which fill and characterise St. James.

I. What is wisdom?—‘Wisdom’ is not knowledge, though it involves knowledge, for the most learned persons are often the least wise. ‘Wisdom’ is the right use of knowledge. Or take it thus. ‘Wisdom’ is that union of the heart and head when right affections guide the exercise of talent. Or, ‘wisdom’ is power to balance materials of good thought. It is the ability to direct intelligently and usefully the words we speak or the acts we do. Or, a step higher still, ‘wisdom’ is the reflection of the mind of God. Christ is the reflection of the mind of God. Therefore Christ is ‘wisdom.’ And the most Christ-like is the most wise. If you wish to understand ‘wisdom,’ study Christ.

II. The guilt of foolishness.—The memory of most of us need go very little way back to show the necessity for this understanding of God. What a very humbling thing it is to look back and think—I do not now say how sinfully—but how very foolishly we have again and again spoken and acted. And is foolishness much less than sin? Is foolishness not sin? Is it not the ‘idle word’ for which we shall ‘give account’? Was it not the ‘fool’ who said in his heart, ‘There is no God’? and the ‘fool’ who said to his soul, ‘Soul, thou hast much goods’? Was not it the ‘foolish man’ that ‘built upon the sand’? And were not the ‘foolish virgins’ the virgins lost? If ‘wisdom’ were not a thing covenanted, then might a man not be responsible for being unwise. But now that God has promised to ‘give wisdom’ to every one who ‘asks’ for it, it is no longer venial to be foolish. The silly word you say, and the foolish act you do, is left guilty, and without excuse.

III. Asking for wisdom.—To obtain ‘wisdom,’ the first thing you have to do is to recognise it to be a gift. ‘Wisdom’ seems to be such a natural development of mind that we cannot easily get rid of the idea that if we only think enough—think long enough and think deeply enough, we shall think ourselves into wisdom. But to the ‘wisdom’ such as God gave Joseph in the sight of Pharaoh—that ‘wisdom’ of which some asked, ‘Whence hath this man wisdom?’—the wisdom ‘which is first pure’—the ‘wisdom’ no science, no self-discipline, no effort will secure—the road is prayer, only prayer, communion with the Unseen. Now the way to ‘ask’ is practically twofold. There is making it the subject of your stated prayer, and there is also the secret prayer in the heart, darted forth just at the moment when the emergency occurs and the need is felt; and it is of this ejaculatory prayer that St. James is chiefly speaking.

—Rev. James Vaughan.

Illustration

‘The Church asks for your energy, your zeal, your self-devotion. She asks in the world’s name for examples, signal examples of holy consecrated life. She wants men to spend themselves and be spent with whole-hearted, patient continuance in well-doing. She wants workers who are wise of heart. Christ is wisdom; live in His presence; draw daily out of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge which are hidden in Him, and you will not fail, nor be finally discouraged. They that be wise with His wisdom shall turn many to righteousness; shall share in the glory of His perfect kingdom; shall shine as the stars for ever and ever. Go, then, whatever your gifts may be, and lay them down at His feet; lay down the very faculties of thought and feeling; die there to the world, and rise to live for Him alone. And ask in faith for wisdom. Our very prayers fail often in wisdom, but our refuge is in God, Who gives to all men liberally and upbraideth not.

Forgive our wild and wandering cries,

Forgive them where they fail in truth,

And in Thy wisdom make me wise.’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

THE WISDOM OF GOD

‘Ask what I shall give thee.’ So spake the still small voice in the deep silence of the Divinely given dream. And the answer was worthy of the man and the moment. One great want that lay heavy upon Solomon in the daylight of reason followed him behind the veil of darkness into the uncreated light of the Divine Presence. He slept, but his heart was wakeful, alert, quick with high sensibility. His answer was: ‘Give me wisdom, that I may go out and come in before this people.’ And the prayer was answered, for when Solomon awoke from his dream to his duties he found himself established in his kingdom. His ‘people saw,’ we are told, that ‘the wisdom of God was in him.’ Shall not this inspiring vision find its counterpart here to-day?

I. And what is matter of strong encouragement is this—viz. that whenever such things take place, not only does the gift come that is asked for, but it comes ‘liberally’; it comes from One Who in His giving is moved only by His essential nature to pour out the blessing as soon and as fully as His children are ready to receive it. ‘Liberally,’ I said. The word St. James uses occurs but this once in the whole New Testament. The same English word is found once in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 15:14), but in a different connotation; so here in this one place it stands, a measure immeasurable of Divine response to those who ask in faith that wisdom which they find lacking in themselves. Perhaps he had in his mind the gift of a fool—‘He will give little and upbraid much’ (Eccles. 20:15)—so he turns from the sometimes ungracious gifts of men to the unfailing largesses of God.

II. There is yet a further encouragement.—The man who in presence of a great duty to which he inwardly trusts that he is called, whether it be to a throne as a monarch, or in the Church of God to rule or feed God’s flock, he, if his prayer is for wisdom, will kindle in other hearts the same desire, and a multitude of prayers will go up with his and bring yet larger answers down. No sooner had Solomon’s prayer been answered than there began to enter into prayers and proverbs, into sacred literature—devotional and didactic—this thought of wisdom as God’s great gift to men. It became their guide of life. It becomes more and more familiar as we turn over the pages of what we call, in the Canon of Scripture and out of it, the ‘wisdom literature.’ Wisdom was the principal thing. They had no other philosophy of life. It was practical; it was binding; it was a law of conduct; it had right instincts; it built up character upon true foundations. The fear of God was its beginning; the approval of God its end.

III. But when in process of time it became stiff and rigid and mechanical, as, in all rites and rituals, rules and regulations may, another yoke was needed easier than that which Scribes and Pharisees had wrought out. The image of wisdom rose above the law, disengaged itself from the law. The law at its best was given by Moses, but Scribes had made a hedge around it, law around law. It could not quicken; it could not give life. Then the nobler souls remembered ‘Wisdom’ and heard her invitations. They felt her attraction, and tried to account for it. Wisdom was their law, and they followed the clue till they grew prophetic and invested wisdom with personality. She was to them an image of His goodness, an effulgence of the Everlasting Light, an unspotted mirror of the working of God. Then again the prayer of Solomon went up to God; then again the large, the liberal answer came down. ‘O God of my fathers,’ the prayer rang, ‘Who … by Thy wisdom formed man, give me wisdom, her that sitteth by Thee on Thy throne.… Send her forth out of the holy heavens, and from the throne of Thy glory bid her come.’ Let her ‘toil with me.’ Let her teach me ‘what is well pleasing before Thee.’ She shall ‘guard me in her glory,’ ‘and in my doings she shall guide me in ways of soberness.’

So ran once more the prayer for wisdom—for wisdom to live for God, for wisdom to live in His light and in His love, and—nearest approach to the language of Pentecostal clearness—‘Whoever gained,’ the prayer went on, ‘the knowledge of Thy counsel except Thou gavest wisdom, and sentest Thy Holy Spirit from on high?’

—Rev. Chancellor Edmonds.

Illustration

‘The Church has, in her long career, left few niches unoccupied for distinguished men to fill. What she needs most in her young ministers, what she prizes most in her most honoured and trusted leaders, is not their learning, highly as she prizes it, but their wisdom, heavenly wisdom, the thing in them which of all others is likest God. Learned, in any large sense of learned, you may never be; but wise—wise unto salvation—wise to win men to their salvation, you all may be. It is good to know, it is better to be wise. “In you” there are, I trust, these

Ardent, unquenchable fires,

Not with the crowd to be spent,

Not without aim to go round

In an eddy of purposeless dust.’