The Skill of Living (Part 4)
I hope that you’ve already read this post, where I described the role of Wisdom in creation, and how wisdom was woven into the fabric of t he universe. You may remember that Proverbs 8 describes how Lady Wisdom proceeded eternally from God’s very nature, and was the craftsman of creation.
If that sounded familiar, it may have because, while the Hebrews spoke of chokmah (skill or wisdom), the Greeks spoke of the Logos , or “the Word.” The apostle John, who was a Hebrew writing in Greek, merged these two concepts when he wrote in John 1:
In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. (John 1:1-3)
Here we see the Logos, the Word, doing what Lady Wisdom did in Proverbs. But John goes on to tell us more than the author of the Proverbs could have ever told us. This is simply because, when the Proverbs were compiled it hadn’t happened yet. By the time John lived, however, it had happened and John had seen it with his own eyes.
The Logos became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
God’s Wisdom came into the world in the person of Jesus Christ, so that we don’t have to wonder what a skillfully lived life looks like. He lived life perfectly, to the full – because he is the Creator of Life the Master of it, and he came to give abundant, eternal life.
The good news is that he died, so that we could have that life, too. He rose again and he sent his Spirit, so that our chaotic lives can be built according to the plan that God has for us. And today we can read his Word and listen to his Spirit and we can discern the work that God wants to do so that our lives display his skill craftsmanship.
That’s what it means to experience grace.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:8-10)
When we begin to do the good works that God has created us in Christ, in the Logos, to do, that is when we become skilled in the art of living—that is when we are living wisely.
WordPress database error: [Can't open file: 'wp_comments.MYI' (errno: 144)]
SELECT * FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_post_ID = '126' AND comment_approved = '1' ORDER BY comment_dateNo Comments »
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment