I admit the title of this page sounds a little pretentious. I of course have no more claim to wisdom than anyone else. My use of that word is simply inspired by the ancient Hebrew genre of writing known as wisdom literature, consisting of the Old Testament books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon, plus a few deuterocanonical works. These are not primarily historical or even strictly propositional in nature, but are intended to convey meaningful insights in catchy, memorable forms.
The book of Proverbs is perhaps the paradigm example of this. It is mainly a collection of short, pithy sayings, similar to what in our day might be put together as a book of familiar quotations. Solomon was said to have authored 3000 such sayings, as well as over 1000 songs, such as can be found in the book of Psalms (1 Kings 4:32). The only Biblical figure who is better known for this type of thing would probably be Jesus Christ Himself, who also formulated much of His teaching in short sayings and parables obviously designed to be audibly striking and easily remembered.
I suspect we Christians in our modern culture may have a slight tendency to undervalue this kind of thing. We collect the witty sayings of humorists like Will Rogers and Mark Twain, but how many of us could give an example of a modern “wisdom quote” that prompts us to ponder a great truth about God or our relationship to Him? And how many of us even think about trying to formulate one?
The answer is probably much more than I am aware of. I certainly don’t intend to declare wisdom literature a lost art just yet. For myself, I enjoy making at least a token effort in this direction from time to time, and I sometimes come up with a saying that is at least meaningful to me. So here is my collection so far, organized roughly by topic. Maybe others will enjoy reading it as well, and hopefully be motivated to come up with a few sayings of their own.
 | Having faith in God can be perilously close to having a god in faith. |
| Faith, like love, can neither exist on absolute ignorance nor insist on absolute knowledge. |
| A shallow faith shuns all doubt. |
| It is a stronger faith that believes with reason but not certainty than with certainty but not reason. |
| The essence of faith is not in feeling certain about our beliefs, but in having God-given courage to live them. |
| Psychological certainty is usually nothing more than faith too weak to risk introspection. |
| Question your fears; don’t fear your questions. |
| Confidence is how faith acts. Appreciation is how faith feels. |
| Why trials? Because as courage can only be demonstrated in the face of danger and fear, so faith can only be demonstrated in the face of questions and doubt. |
| Just because faith isn’t works doesn’t mean it’s never work. |
| Faith is like an iceberg. What’s on the surface is not always an accurate measure of what’s underneath. |
| The measure of how genuinely you believe something is not how assuredly it affects your assertions but how deeply it affects your desires. |
| To do what we want takes power. To want we need takes faith. |
| There is more hope for he who has no belief about God but much hunger than for he who has much belief about God but no hunger. |
| The freedom of salvation means there are no mere seekers, only false seekers and true finders. |
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If faith comes from intelligence, then doubt is foolish, and we despise it for
deflating our ego. If faith comes from will, then doubt is sinful, and we fear it for questioning our ideology. If faith comes from God’s grace, then doubt is stimulating, and we face it as honestly and bravely as any other trial for accomplishing a divine work in our character. |
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Sow a reason; reap a believer. Sow a belief; reap a dogmatist. Sow a dogma; reap a tyrant. Sow a tyranny; reap a doubter. Sow a doubt; reap a reasoner. |
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Refute a frivolous man’s argument and watch him dig out. Refute a pompous man’s argument and watch him dig in. Refute a virtuous man’s argument and watch him dig into. |
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Right thinking begets beliefs that are rational. Rote learning begets beliefs that are conventional. Raw willing begets beliefs that are maniacal. |
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It’s usually a principle Your reason’s not invincible If first you weren’t convincible. |
| Too much constancy in our doctrinal views is as much a mark of immaturity as too much susceptibilty to every wind. True love for God with all the mind necessitates the painfully disconcerting process of changing it from time to time. |
| The opinions we really care about are seldom changed by argument alone. We also need time to forget that the arguments came from our opponents. |
| A horse is just like a person, except you don’t have to resort to flattery to lead one of them to water. |
| It’s easy to discern the civility in those who agree with us and the acrimony in those who don’t. |
| Appropriate aspiration for accurate assessment of argument is almost always aborted when amassed as ammunition or armored against aggression. |
| The opinions we most despise are often those we ourselves held yesterday, or fear we might hold tomorrow. |
| Our most cherished beliefs are those that follow us in our reasoning even when we dare to release them in our will. |
| The chief rival to love of truth is love of being right. |
| Few people are as stupid as they sometimes seem to us. They just operate with a different set of biases. |
| Reading only authors you agree with is no more studying than bouncing balls off a wall to yourself is playing tennis. |
| A slippery slope halts the progress of those who fear to step onto it just as effectively as those who recklessly slide off the end. |
| The difference between opinion, prejudice, and ideology lies in whether the opposing side is held to be mistaken, distasteful, or immoral. |
| Fundamentalism is when you expect others to build on the foundation you hung from your roof. |
| Too much fear of throwing the baby out with the bathwater drowns the baby. |
| A sentence beginning, “I have always believed...” generally has no business being finished. What we have always simply thought true we have never sincerely thought through. |
| It’s hard to discredit reason—especially if you think you have a good reason. |
| The problem with postmodernism is that it assumes the elephant was just as wrong as the six men. |
| Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; it takes an adult to release it upon the world. |
| Truth is usually communicated more concisely and precisely with propositions, but more effectively and affectively with stories. |
| Every fact in the universe gives glory to God, including the fact that some people do not. |
| The denial that the omniscient Creator of all things is in purposeful charge of their outcome is the charge that the omniscient Creator of all things is in purposeful denial about their outcome. |
| The more of life’s circumstances you attribute to the hand of a good God, the more you have to be thankful for. |
| Learn to see God’s hand in every act, without hearing His voice in every idea. |
| The surpassing values of grace and truth are inseparable for genuine faith, which necessarily involves loving truth above self, which necessarily involves admitting we often love self above truth, which necessarily involves admitting we deserve judgment above grace, which necessarily involves loving grace above judgment. |
| A flourishing faith includes the confidence that even what we find disturbing about God now, we will one day truly admire Him for. |
| God is a moral relativist: What’s moral or immoral for someone to do is relative to whether they’re Him or you. |
| A miracle is a sign that God has spoken, not that He had to fudge the course of nature to make it turn out right. |
| The desire to be saved without being changed is the essence of hypocrisy. |
| Faith without works is as impossible as a fire without heat. |
| Submission: The will for God to work into my will whatever He will. |
| There is none so willing as the blind who now can see. |
| Wrestle with God as you’d accept the honor of playing basketball with Michael Jordan: Not to school, but to be schooled. |
| To sin that grace may abound is to put your hand in the fire for the comfort of taking it back out. |
| Do not rejoice in the punishment of evil with simple, self-congratulating smugness, and do not refuse to rejoice with profoundly renewed humility. |
| Many secede from a mere confederation with Christ, but none from an indissoluble union. |
| Spiritual truth does not release its character-stimulating nourishment through the intravenous drip of mere assent, but through being deliberately chewed on, broken down in the understanding, and relished for each elegant essence. |
| The proud heart is as often clothed in the demand for an apology as in the refusal to give one. |
| Walking by the Spirit is not a euphemism for listening to your intestines. |
| Religion is to faith what politics is to justice. |
| Those who find their politics in their religion will soon find their religion in their politics. |
| Might does not make right, but it has a lot to do with who are the “powers that be” to whom it is generally right to be subject. |
This page copyright © 2011 Edward A. Morris. Created May 14, 2011. Last updated September 28, 2011.