Chimneys, a Bouquet and Two Kinds of Wisdom

Two kinds of wisdom: you'll know them by their fruit

The wisdom book of the Old Testament is Proverbs, and the wisdom book of the New Testament is James. If you want wisdom, read these two books again and again. James tells apart two kinds of wisdom:

This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.

James 3:15–17

When a family fights every time they open their mouths, when a team or a church keeps splitting, the wisdom at work there isn't the wisdom from above. Before we came to faith, we three sisters would happily never have seen each other again. My mother had been in Canada seven years, and her one wish was for her three daughters to sit down and eat a meal together. In seven years it never happened. Only after all of us believed in Jesus did we finally have that meal. Today we three sisters serve together, our husbands walk alongside us together, and our children have become best friends. The fruit of the wisdom from above is peace.

Wisdom is the angle you see things from

A Jewish rabbi asked his students: two young men clean a chimney together. When they come out, one has a clean face and one has a dirty face. Which one goes to wash his face? The students said the one with the dirty face. The rabbi said no. Then the students said it must be the one with the clean face, because he sees the other one's dirty face and thinks his own is dirty too. The rabbi said no again. Finally the rabbi said: the chimney is so narrow, and the two of them climbed out together. How could one be clean and the other dirty? The premise of the question is wrong.

If the premise is wrong, however hard you try, you won't get to the right place. How much of our strength in life goes into proving "I'm right and you're wrong"? Before I became a Christian, I had to win at home. I never said sorry, and when I started yelling the whole family was scared of me. That's earthly wisdom: wrong from the starting point.

There was one household that lived in harmony, and the neighbours asked them their secret. They said, "Everyone in our house is a sinner. When there's a conflict, everyone says, 'It's my fault,' so there's no fight." Another household smashed pots and plates every day, because everyone in it was "righteous." Everyone said they were right.

In class I showed everyone a picture. At first glance it's a bouquet of flowers, but look closely and there are three faces in profile hidden among the flowers. That's so often how it is between people: you see one face, I see two, he sees three, and someone else insists it's just a bouquet. A lot of the time, nobody is wrong.

Wisdom is knowledge, judgment and insight.
Clever people speak from the head; wise people speak from the heart.

Real wisdom is being able to hear everyone's angle, and then, with a pure and peaceable heart, a gentle and patient heart, to discern what's really true in it. When we adjust the way we look at people and things, we find that every little flower is lovely, and every person has their own wisdom.