Wisdom in Context

“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” – James 1:5, NIV

Words mean something. Their substance, their sequence, their placement in the paragraph or on the page, their tone, and their context within the scope of the greater work. Words are important. For this reason, if for no other, it’s critical that we exercise caution in our wielding of these words in isolation from the greater context; this is particularly true when referencing the Word of God. So, when we read through a statement such as that above – “If any of you lacks wisdom … ask God … and it will be given to you” – we owe it to the integrity of the text and to ourselves to dig just a little deeper. If, in faith, we believe that God will grant us this wisdom ‘without finding fault’, why is it that we so often feel as though we’ve been left standing at the altar, awaiting this sudden and magical bestowal of divine insight? We’ve asked for wisdom, and we’ve ‘believed and not doubted’ (James 1:6), but we still don’t feel any closer to the sorts of unique insights we desire – in fact, we often find that instead of receiving insightful solutions, we encounter a more focused flood of unique problem sets, requiring an entirely new application of wisdom. How can this be? Did we miss a word or intonation in our initial wisdom inquiry? And there lies the importance of associating the verse with the entirety of the text. Let’s back up just a few verses to see what led us to this point. James begins his letter with what appears to be a slightly different focus –

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” – James 1:1-4

In a vacuum, it would certainly appear that the wisdom we seek from God during life’s most challenging circumstances would come in the form of an on-demand infusion – like filling up at the corner gas station (only hopefully less expensive). When considered within context of the remainder of Scripture, however, a wisdom infusion is a lot more akin to a smelting process of sorts – an intentional melting down of those support structures we’ve come to rely on in lieu of our reliance on God. In their molten and malleable forms, these raw and previously ill-employed materials are often refined and repurposed by the Father through the trials we’ve been admonished to file under ‘pure joy’ (James 1:1). But… is perseverance through a painful repurposing truly the desired end state of a Believer’s refinement? James continues his enlightenment of the audience by answering that very question with “…so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” If the end goal is that we are ‘complete’ and ‘not lacking anything’, why (in the very next sentence) would James immediately exhort us to ask God for something we lack? Shouldn’t this have been accomplished in the refinement process of the trial we just endured – you know, the process that was intended to end with our being made ‘complete’? And here we have the point of today’s scriptural musings – context matters. Although our use of scripture as a society is oftentimes utilized in a way that best suits our bite-sized world, relegation of scripture to Twitterable Hallmark slogans leaves a great deal of significant content on the outside looking in. Extracted from the context of James’ epistle in its entirety, for example, a Believer might be confused by the Lord’s answering of his faithful request for wisdom by introducing a root-strengthening trial, instead. Within the context of his writing in its entirety, however, the Christ-Follower is fully aware that the Lord – in His sovereignty – may well intend to answer her request for divinely-inspired wisdom with a spiritual decathlon, uniquely designed to bring about a strengthening of faith… and, yes, also a wisdom that can only be found through a maturation brought about by the Spirit’s refining work within us.

So after following James’ logic trail now we’ve come to what I believe to be a major point of James’ exhortation:

Wisdom comes from refinement – a refinement that only God can bring about. This refinement, however, does not come from our abilities to try a little harder, or to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps – it is initiated when God evaluates and targets the flesh-fashioned obstacles that prevent us from being able to see a situation or analyze a challenge with His eyes. From the moment we’ve entered into a covenantal relationship with God through the willing sacrifice of His Son, we are bought with a price (1 Corinthians 6:20); we are His to sand, shape, shave, and shine as He sees fit in order to demolish barriers to our transformation into His likeness (2 Corinthians 3:18). For those who have had a genuine encounter with Jesus Christ, remaining as we once were has never been on the table, and as such, it is His intentional (sometimes painful) development of us toward His image – rather than an innocuous, genie-like bestowal – that will produce the sort of godly wisdom James has encouraged us to beg of God. When this is the type of wisdom we seek – a wisdom that allows us to reason through life’s conundrums from a renewed and supernatural perspective – we consciously commit into the Lord’s hands the process of our transformation, trusting that His designs for the development of His children are wholly benevolent, and bear the unique hallmark of a divinely eternal perspective.

Need a shot of wisdom? I’ll second James’ exhortation – you should absolutely ask God, “who gives generously to all without finding fault,” but as with all inoculations, it’s only fair to attach a proper warning:

“WARNING: Context matters. Please read instruction manual in context and in its entirety. This infusion of wisdom may be highly personalized, and may involve extensive discomfort resulting from your active participation in the sanctification process. Use as directed to facilitate completeness and growth into the likeness of Christ.”