WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE WISE?
What does it take to be wise? Watching Dr. Phil, reading Brittney Spears mother's book on parenting, or looking into the yellowbook.com, or is there another way?
In a television commercial for online yellow pages, actor David Carradine plays a guru to a young seeker. (Sorry a side note: Kung Fu 1972, or Kill Bill 2004) When the student asks, "How do I find enlightenment?" the master says, "Yellowbook.com .. . Everyone is searching for something . . . After all, it is a material world, and with yellowbook.com, you just type in what and where."
The ad is insightful. Wisdom does involve the practical use of knowledge to get what we are looking for. The commercial is also right in suggesting that wisdom is more accessible than many of us might have thought.
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The culture will always be looking for material wisdom to gain more money. Fox News has a network on how to gain knowledge of how to make more money. The world wants knowledge of how to gain the upper hand on Wall Street.
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The Christians should seek knowlege on the Christian life, how to become like Christ.
Proverbs.com is a good place to start. When I was pastor of First Baptist Church in Altoona Kansas, Proverbs was the book I loved to teach the most. I have three three-ring binders of notes from that study. A lot of the material came from my friend Bill Rinehart who I had known from Wooster, Ohio. He had done a complete study of Proverbs and had a great set of notes.
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Early in my childhood, mom and dad would read daily with Don and me from the book of Proverbs. We had a dose of Proverbs for years as a youth. There is no better book that you could buy that would do what the book of Proverbs would do.
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Proverbs has thirty one chapters, reading a chapter a day would keep most Dr.'s away. We seek wisdom for living life by seeking to know God's blueprint for living. Dr. Phil might have some good advice for the secular world, and he does have a desire to help others. But Dr. Phil is not the first resource that we should turn to for handing life's situtation. Notice that those on the program already have the prob;ems. Britney Spears' mother who wrote a book on parenting could have used Proverbs. com. as the main source of instruction for mom's and dad's. But she was too much into making her child desire to have money and a life style like the culture.
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We will look into this book of Proverbs this year and see the wisdom that is taught. Stay tuned.
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Charles E. Whisnant
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