Wisdom has two or three parts.

The first part of wisdom is "understanding."  By this, we mean "understanding the way God works or has created a particular thing to work."  When the Lord God says, "My ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts." this is the sort of thing that God is talking about.  We must remember that He has not created things to work in the ways that we think they should work or would like them to work.  In fact, we should always start from the assumption that the way we would have created things or the way we would have done things are nothing like the way things really are.  This is because our understanding and our will are not in line with God's understanding and will.  It should probably an entire post of its own, but this is the "image of God" which was lost by mankind in the Fall into Sin.  We no longer see things the ways that God sees them (if, in fact, we can see them at all).  We no longer will or desire the things that God wills or desires.  In fact, our sinful, fallen will and desire are contrary to God's holy will and desire.

This is the cause behind so many things about the creation and mankind that we simply don't understand or have such difficult times accepting.  Human cultures are mostly based upon human ideas and desires.  While there may be something in us which recognizes God original design, our understanding about those things is inadequate and/or our desire for those things is often at odds with God's will.

Let's consider an example.  A debate has been going on in American culture since at least the close of the Second World War concerning the roles of women in the family (marriage and parenting) and in society (such as women in the military, the 'glass ceiling' for women in the workplace, and so forth - not to mention the role of women in the Christian Church). The fact that we have such debates and the fact that every human culture has had different roles for men and women tells us that there is something which seems to be built-into humans which raises this issue.  What that "something" is and what that "something" means is the material of the debate. 

As Christians who seek the Wisdom of God in such matters, we must start with the assumption that our understanding of what these things are is most probably different from God's understanding of what these things are.  He sees the issue from the perspective of the Creator and we see these issues from the perspective of fallen, sinful beings who no longer understand the things of God and have a natural will which is essentially opposed to the will of God.

So with the present hot-button issue of women's roles in the home, in society, and in the Church should we not begin with the assumption that our natural inclinations toward understanding these things and our desire for how they are arranged are most likely not consistent with the understanding and will of God?

Let's be even more specific.  Do we not tell both our little boys and our little girls that they can grow up to be anything they would like?  That suggests we expect equality of opportunity for everyone.  But is this what God says?  Does God say that each little boy or girl is a lump of clay from which they can fashion their own lives however they desire?  I don't believe that God's Word says this.  Instead, God tells us that before we were born, while we were still in our mother's womb, that He was already forming us into the people He has made us to be.  God does not say that we are all born with equal opportunity.  If God intended John, while still in the womb of Elizabeth, to become the Baptist who would prepare the way for Jesus, what formations was God already giving John the Baptist before he was born?  Perhaps he would need parents of a particular background or experience.  Certainly the Baptist would need parents who lived at just the right time in history.  John would need a voice with which to preach, a stomach that could handle locusts and wild honey, and skin that wouldn't react violently to camel's hair.  Okay, now let's make it tough.  If God intended John to be The Baptist, was it important to God that John would be male rather than female?  

I believe the answer to that last question is:  Yes.  John would need to be a male.  You see, in Jewish culture and according to Jewish Law (given by God), a woman was to be some man's daughter or some man's husband or some man's father.  I know, our culture hates to hear that.  But according to the Bible, it's true.  So, could John have been the Baptist foretold by Isaiah ("The voice of one crying in the wilderness,'Prepare the way for the Lord!'" if John the Baptist had been a woman?  I don't believe so. 

You see, this is why we in the Church today have failed to make our case for the roles of women in the Church.  It is because we have failed to take on the basic assumption of society that all children can make of themselves whatever they would like to be.  That is the root difference.  God's Word does not agree with that basic assumption.  Or, perhaps I should say that this basic assumption does not agree with God's Word.  Rather, we believe that God creates each and every one of us to have certain roles - we call them 'vocations' - in life.  He determines when and where and to whom we will be born.  He determines the gifts, skills, abilities that we are born with.  We understand this when we say of someone "He is a born athlete!" or "She has such a beautiful voice."  So we must recognize that not all children can become Olympic athletes and not all children can become famous singers.  If we can accept that, then why are we not willing to say that not everyone can be a father or a mother, a husband or a wife?  And if we go on from there, can we not also say that not everyone has been formed by God to be a preacher or an evangelist? 

It is true that at times it is necessary for people to take up and function within roles that they were not created to carry.  We all know about divorce, absent parents, premature death, unwed mothers.  Therefore, we encourage, support, and pray for mothers who must also take on the roles of fathers and fathers who must also serve the functions of mothers.  But do we not also feel odd when we see people doing these things unnecessarily?  For example, if a husband and father dies, we encourage, support, and pray for the mother who must serve as both parents.  But if the father is living and in the home, don't we think it is odd if he is altogether uninvolved in his marriage or in the lives of his children?  If he's there, we expect him to make his contribution to the marriage and family.  But this is meant as an example of the principle and not the subject of this post.

Once again, we must begin with the assumption that our understanding and our desires - that is, our fallen view and hopes for the way things would be - are not the same as God who created us.  Wisdom begins with "the fear of the Lord."   And that means we must set aside our own views and desires in order to come to an understanding about God's view which shaped what He has created.  And oh, by the way, we can expect that our fallen natures are not going to like God's view - at least initially - because they are so foreign to us.  

Now, I began this post by saying that Wisdom has two or three parts.  All of the foregoing is the first part:  understanding things the way that God created them to be.

The second or perhaps second and third parts have to do with applying this understanding in the real world.  I prefer to break this into two sub-parts or a second and third part to Wisdom.  By my reckoning, the second part of Wisdom is taking the understanding which God has given us and applying to the abstract.  The third part by my reckoning is taking the understanding which God has given us and applying it to concrete, real-life situations.

Many people enjoy talking about abstractions such as "women's roles" or "the death penalty" or "just wars" and things like that.  It is much more difficult and and less enjoyable to apply these principles to real-world situations.  Consider the Biblical example of the Wisdom of Solomon.  The example presents two women who both claim to be the mother of a particular baby.  We begin with an understanding of the Created Order which tells us that there is a particular God-given relationship between mothers and their children - one that the state should stay out of (and which most men know enough to stay out of as well).  Mothers carry their unborn children in their wombs for about nine months.  We know that what the mother eats, how she treats herself and is treated by others impacts also the baby.  Mothers go through great self-sacrifice for their babies as is most evident in child birth (the old joke is that any man who had to go through childbirth would never have more children, but anyway . . . ).  So we all recognize that there is a special bond between mothers and their biological children even before they are born. 

Next, we can apply this understanding about the relationship between mothers and children to the abstract situation of two women who each claim to be the mother of a single child.  This is what Solomon was facing.  In an abstraction, we can say that the two women will most likely have different reactions to any given situation involving the child.  One woman will react as only a biological mother could while the other woman will not react as a biological mother but as something else (perhaps as a grieving mother or as a childless woman we might expect).  We can imagine a number of scenarios in which the two women might react differently because of our understanding of that special bond inherent in the Creation which God has given between mothers and children.

But how shall we apply the understanding of the Creation and the abstractions inherent in the Creation to the particular situation before us?  This is the final part of Wisdom:  knowing how to apply this understanding to every day life.  And this is where our practice of Wisdom can become messy - figuratively and literally.  Solomon decreed that the child in question should be cut in half and each mother should receive half of the child.  Yuck!  What if his plan didn't work?!  Was he really willing to go through with that?  You see, real life situations don't always work out as nicely as our abstractions because our understanding will always be incomplete while we are still living on this side of death.  Often times it appears as though Wisdom tells us to go in different ways at the same time.   For example:  what it wise for the United States to go to war with Iraq?  On the one hand, Iraq demonstrated that it did not understand the resolve of Western cultures to put down weapons of mass destruction and unrestrained aggression as was evident by their refusal to accomodate UN inspectors and their continued aggressiveness following the war for Kuwait.  This was an aggressive nation which needed to be dealt with at some time or another.  One wise counsel would be to engage Iraq before they had an opportunity to become stronger and more deadly through development of weapons of mass destruction.

But Wisdom also suggested contrary action.  You will remember people asking why America needed to get involved in the Middle East when warfare there is a constant fact of life.  Why send American citizens to fight and die there; why spend limited American resources there if (a) they were of no immediate threat and (b) there would always be war in the Middle East?  There were, of course, other arguments as well.

So which is True Wisdom?  Is it wisest to act now when it is less dangerous and less costly or is it wisest to delay action until it is really needed and may have some hope of accomplishing something more lasting?  Wise men will disagree.

So in the application of understanding to everyday life where real people and real situations complicate and obfuscate the easy answers, what shall we do?  This is where the Wisdom of Solomon becomes such a stunning example and where the Wisdom of Jesus as delivered, for example, at the Sermon on the Mount is so profound.  They have found (or been given or simply understand) the way to sort through the contra-indications.  They understand more than just the way God has made particular things to work in this world but they also understand the way that God Himself has chosen to work in this world.  That's the key!

If I understand that God has built-into the creation a special relationship between a mother and her child, then I can apply that information to situations involving mothers and their children.  But if I can come to understand how God Himself has chosen to work in this world, now I can apply that understanding to every situation that arises between God and men and between men whom God has made. 

The question then is:  How has God chosen to interact with Adam and Eve and their descendants?