October 22 - Wise Guys

 Read today’s texts first: Job 11,12; Acts 15,16

 MAXIMize YOUR DAY

When I bring advice based on God’s Word,
I am a wise man.  When I advise others just out of my
own experience, I become a wise guy.

My thought today when reading the Job account is he should seriously consider finding new “friends.” Each one piles on higher than the one before.  Zophar calls Job worthless, stupid, the son of a wild ass (11:11,12), while consoling him with, “you deserve worse than you’re getting” (11:6).  This is not exactly what you need to hear while you’re scraping boils off your body!

No wonder Job responds with sarcasm: “you are the man and wisdom will die with you” (12:2).  In other words, it’s comments like yours that turns a wise man into a wise guy!  And then Job hits on an insight that helps us understand our Acts reading as well.  He says that “in the thought of one who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune” (12:5).

This is why I was a terrible counselor for most of my life.  I had such a good childhood that I avoided most of the pitfalls teenagers and adults fall into later in life.  As a pastor, when people came to me with their problems, I was quick to tell them it was probably their own fault.  The depth of my advice was like that Mad TV Bob Newhart sketch, “stop doing that” (check out “stop it” on Youtube - very funny until you catch yourself doing it).

When we advise others out of our own experience we become a wise guy.  No one can fully empathize with what someone else is going through.  The same thing happens in Acts 15 when we read about the first recorded church council meeting.  The Jewish Christians couldn’t understand why the Gentiles who were being saved weren’t complying with their Jewish traditions (15:5).

This led to some heated debate between those who sat at home in Jerusalem with those who were on the field seeing what God was doing in saving the Gentiles and filling them with His Spirit.  The gap in experience was too wide, until James, the brother of Jesus, brought them together with the wisdom of God’s Word (a quote from Amos 9:12).

That’s why we have the Bible.  It supplies both the experiences from the full scope of human history with God’s timeless wisdom.  With it, even a wise guy like me can become a wise man.  “Lord, show me how I can apply the wisdom from Your Word to my life today.”