Discerning Between Demonic Wisdom and Wisdom From God

I’m not sure I can adequately define wisdom, but I can certainly point to it when I see it.

Solomon Mekonnen shared this with me from his teaching on wisdom in our podcast interview yesterday. It’s clear that wisdom is observable.

“Consider James chapter 3, verses 13 through 18. James speaks to us about two types of wisdom,” Mekonnen says. “There is wisdom that is called normal and natural and demonic and there is wisdom that is from above, from God. And James says that I don’t need to ask you which wisdom you have. He says, I can see it by your conduct and by your actions. And the evidence itself speaks the type of wisdom that your life is running by.

“So, I say, for us Christians, in order to live the type of the life that is described in verses 17 and 18, where James says that the wisdom from God is pure and peaceable and gentle and reasonable and full of good fruits and righteous and without hypocrisy. To get all of that, we need to lean on God, and the only way to lean on God is to lean on the Word of God because that is what the Holy Spirit uses to lead us into all truth. There are no alternatives outside of the Word of God, enlightened in us by the Holy Spirit.”

The Lord has not left us without the tools we need. Mekonnen then said something that made me want to stop the podcast and just worship the Lord:

“The Bible is the only book of which the author is always with the reader.

“You know, we buy books, but the author does not come with us. But with the Bible, the author is always with us, to help us understand what the nuggets are in those precepts.”

We learned a lot about Mekonnen’s life in this podcast, but he prefers that we focus our attention on the search for truth through Bible study.

He and the writing team of three from the Practical Christianity Foundation have completed a series of devotional commentaries covering the entire New Testament. They continue to work on a three-volume set on Genesis. They recently released GENESIS: In the Beginning, which covers chapters 1-11.

I asked Solomon about the best way to approach the devotional commentary.

“Actually, the way it was originally designed is our hope that the reader will take one section a day. Usually, it’s faithful to how the passage is broken up into paragraphs in the text itself. So, it’s usually seven, eight verses. So, we comment on a section of a group of verses. And then we close that paragraph with notes and application, which is the devotional aspect of it. So, if someone takes a section a day, that will be a good long term, devotional, study material.”

Never forget as you read and study books from Solomon’s devotional commentaries that the author of the Bible is with you in Spirit and in truth.

For more about Solomon Mekonnen’s ministry and discerning wisdom, listen to the entire podcast here. {eoa}