Reductionism
You teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
Psalm 51:6
There's loads of knowledge to be found, but wisdom is a rare commodity. Why? Because wisdom is one of sin's first casualties. Sin reduces all of us to fools. You see the empirical evidence of the foolishness of sin on almost every page of Scripture. You see foolishness in full operation in the tragic story of David and Bathsheba. This is why David says, "Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place" (v. 6 NIV).
You read the story of David's sin, and you say to yourself, "What was he thinking? Did he really believe that he'd get away with this? Did he completely forget who he was? Did he think that God was going to stand idly by and let this happen?" But David is not some extreme case of foolishness gone wild; you see evidence of the same foolishness in each of our lives daily. The components of the foolishness of sin still corrupt and interrupt our lives again and again. People could say of us again and again, "What was he thinking? What was she thinking?"
I’ve heard it called the soporific nature of sin. It makes us spiritually sleepy, dull and stupid. That explains the crazy things people do.
What does foolishness look like? Here are four of its most significant aspects.
1) The Foolishness of Self-centeredness
We were created to live for something, someone bigger than ourselves. We were designed to live with, for, and through the Lord. God is meant to be the motivation and hope of everything we do. His pleasure, his honor, and his will are the things for which we are meant to live. But the foolishness of sin really does cause us to reduce our lives to the size and shape of our lives. Our living has no greater purpose than self-satisfaction and self-fulfillment. Our problem isn't just the difficulties of life in this fallen world but the foolishness that we bring to them that causes us to trouble our own trouble.
Wisdom from Scripture tells us that we find fulfillment when we experience the joy of giving to and serving others. If we water we will be watered. But sin tells us something different. I look out for myself, only giving if something is left over or if it’s convenient. I keep a tight reign on things and time; I don’t want to run out of either.
2) The Foolishness of Self-deception
We're all very good at making ourselves feel good about what God says is bad. We're all very skilled at recasting what we've done so what was wrong doesn't look so wrong to us. I'll tell myself that I didn't really lash out in anger; no, I was speaking as one of God's prophets. I'll tell myself that that second look wasn't lust; I am simply a man who enjoys beauty. I'll tell myself that I'm not craving power; I'm just exercising God-given leadership gifts. Foolishness is able to do something dangerous. It's able to look at wrong and see right. Had David been able to see himself with accuracy and if he'd been able to see his sin for what it really was, it's hard to imagine that he would have continued to travel down that pathway.
The only way out of this deception is to renew our mind with Scripture and to have good people around us who get involved in our lives when they see us getting off track.
3) The Foolishness of Self-sufficiency
We all like to think of ourselves as more independently capable than we actually are. We weren't created to be independent, autonomous, or self-sufficient. We were made to live in a humble, worshipful, and loving dependency upon God and in a loving and humble interdependency with others. Our lives were designed to be community projects. Yet, the foolishness of sin tells us that we have all that we need within ourselves. So we settle for relationships that never go beneath the casual. We defend ourselves when the people around us point out a weakness or a wrong. We hold our struggles within, not taking advantage of the resources that God has given us. The lie of the garden was that Adam and Eve could be like God, independent and self-sufficient. We still tend to buy into that lie.
Sometimes I think we emphasize a “personal relationship with Jesus” too much. We think all we need is Him when He showed by His own life that we need relationships with other people. Through these relationships we gain wisdom and perspective. We also gain victory over sin. Nate Larkin, founder of the Samson Society said this: “During the darkest years of my life, I begged God time and again for a private solution to my private problem, but He never gave me one.” What Nate found is that God wanted to use his sin to force him out of isolation. “In the end, I found victory over my sin by surrendering not just to Christ, but also to the body of Christ.” I need other people.
4) The Foolishness of Self-righteousness
Why don't we celebrate grace more? Why aren't we more amazed by the wonderful gifts that are ours as the children of God? Why don't we live with a deep sense of need, coupled with a deep sense of gratitude for how each need has been met by God's grace? Well, the answer is clear. You'll never celebrate grace as much as you should when you think you're more righteous than you actually are. Grace is the plea of sinners. Mercy is the hope of the wicked. Acceptance is the prayer of those who know that they could never do anything to earn it. But the foolishness of sin makes me righteous in my own eyes. When I tell my stories, I become more the hero than I ever was. I look wiser in my narratives than I could have been. In my view of my history, my choices were better than what they actually were. Often it isn't my sin that keeps me from coming to God. No, it's my righteousness that keeps me from him. Sadly, I don't come to him because I don't think I need the grace that can be found only in him. I don't seek the rescue of that grace because I'm right in my own eyes.
There is also the recurring problem of trying to clean ourselves up before we come to God or thinking we have to grovel before we can be forgiven. Both of those have self-righteousness as their root.
Sin really does reduce us all to fools, but happily the story doesn't end there. The One who is the ultimate source of everything that's good, true, trustworthy, right, and wise is also a God of amazing grace. You don't get freed from your foolishness by education or experience. You don't get wisdom by research and analysis. You get wisdom by means of a relationship with the One who is Wisdom. The radical claim of the Bible is that wisdom isn't first a book, or a system, or a set of commands or principles. No, wisdom is a person, and his name is Jesus Christ. Wisdom begins a lifelong process of freeing us from the stronghold that the foolishness of sin has on us.
It makes such sense that a repentant man (David) would reflect on his need of wisdom. Sin, in reducing us to fools, causes us to do foolish things, even though we think we're wise. And for this we need more than information, education, and experience. We need exactly what we find in Christ—grace. Wisdom is the product of grace; there is simply nowhere else it can be found.
For our relationship with Jesus to grow we need to spend time with Him and get to know Him through the Bible. Without that, we will end up with some messed up view of who He is and what He wants. We will create Him in our image instead of being conformed into His image.
A question from the meditation:
Where do you see the four kinds of foolishness still operating in your life?
I’ve identified a lot of it in the above comments. Those words come from my life and are in the present tense. Probably my biggest problem is self-centeredness. That’s one that isn’t going away soon.
Philip
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