Wisdom and Revelation
"I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better." Ephesians 1:17In my last post, I mentioned that I've been reading John Eldredge's Walking with God and I promised to share a bit of what I've been chewing on. Let's begin with a comment that Eldredge makes based on the above passage from Ephesians:
"From the Spirit come both wisdom and revelation. We need them both to walk with God, need them in generous doses to navigate the dangerous waters of this world. If you're the sort of person who tends to lean toward revelation (just asking God for guidance), then you need to balance your approach with wisdom. If you lean toward a wisdom approach to life, you must deliberately and consciously include revelation... And if you operate for the most part with neither, you are in real trouble" (p. 204).
Honestly, I tend to rely way too heavily on the wisdom side of the equation. I'm comfortable with wisdom (the Greek word that Paul uses is sophia). But what does Paul mean when He mentions revelation (apokalypsis)? In the Old Testament, revelation is based upon one simple truth: Yahweh, the God of Israel, is the LIVING God and is distinct from empty idols. In other words, God is alive... He is not mute... He is communicating and speaking TODAY!
But surely Paul didn't mean anything TOO weird, right?! We shouldn't really expect to be led by revelation TODAY... That would be a bit wacko, don't you think?
Actually, Paul seemed to assume that other Jesus-followers would naturally be directed by the Spirit's revelation. Look at 2 Corinthians 12:1; Acts 16:9; 1 Corinthians 14:6; etc. Here's the bottom line for me... I NEED to HEAR God's voice, and I'm increasingly realizing that if I'm going to HEAR Him, I have to be LISTENING! I can't be SO dependent upon my human wisdom, that I miss out on the counterintuitive leadings of the Holy Spirit. After all, my thoughts are not His thoughts! On the other hand, if you are walking around being solely led by "revelations" from God... you need some balance, as well!
If you're really interested in all of this, the following are some passages that Eldredge uses to defend the idea that God really does want to speak to us TODAY: Luke 12:11-12; John 10:2-4; 14:26; Revelation 3:20. I'd love to hear your comments!
Comments
If we're not listening to God, who are we listening to? And, if we don't think we can hear God speak to us today, we need to go back to the word and dig a little deeper and we need to spend some quality time on our knees.