A Brother's Wisdom 60
James 3:17-18 can be said to define Jesus. Notice these words:
But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then
peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit,
impartial and sincere.
Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.
I am going to do something different today. I have put in bold the "friends of wisdom." I want to ask you to show where you think Jesus exhibited each of these, but I'm asking that commenters restrict themselves to one of these "friends of wisdom" and discuss where they see this "friend of wisdom" in the teaching and praxis of Jesus. (So, one person can comment on "purse" and another on "peace-loving" etc..)
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peace-loving-----Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount about the peacemakers being blessed since they will be called God's children.
Jesus telling Peter to put up his sword, since all who draw the sword will perish with it.
Are we as Christians known as followers of Jesus, and as peacemakers in Jesus' mold? And what picture of Jesus do people get when they see us who claim his name?
I certainly ask myself those questions as well. I'm not pointing fingers.
Considerate: showing concern for the rights and feelings of others (http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=considerate)
It's interesting that as creator-redeemer-God Jesus often pushed people's buttons and made them uncomfortable. But he was considerate, too. Here are some random examples that came to mind.
Turning the water to wine showed consideration of the needs of those at the wedding (if all he needed was a miracle, he could have levitated the house).
Assigning someone to take care of his mother while he was dying showed consideration of her needs. This is a microcosm of what he was doing while he was dying for us.
Giving Mary a place at his feet to let her learn from him showed consideration of her thoughts and intelligence and importance as one of his followers.
He showed consideration for the widow at Nain by raising her son. Same for Mary and Martha with Lazarus and for Jairus' daughter and family. He could have randomly raised dead people with a lot of ceremony, but these were individuals who mattered to their families - each one of these seems personal and intimate.
He personally restored Peter at the lake shore after his resurrection.
He was kind to Paul after Paul's conversion: he specifically sent an individual to be a helper and a friend.
Since I recently did a teaching on the Submission of Jesus, that's the attribute that I'll choose. Jesus in praxis was submissive in the Gospel of Luke where it tells us that he submitted Himself to Mary and Joseph and left Jerusalem with them when they came looking for Him (2:51). In His teaching, Jesus taught that He did nothing on His own initiative, but rather as the Father taught Him (John 8:28).
Jesus submits to the Father at Gethsemane:
"Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will" (Matt 26:39,TNIV).
In asking his Father to take the cup Jesus reflects the deepest sorrow of the human condition, yet he is in full submission to the will of his Father and he willingly relents to his fate in declaring "not as I will, but as you will." This form of submission is driven by love, the kind of love that Jesus speaks of when he says "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).
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