Page 60 Paul’s solution? He said, ,Choose out among you those believers who can decipher inward impressions and interpret outward signs. No! He didn’t say that. He said, ,Is there not a wise man among you who can settle these disputes? And when Paul gives instruction about elders in his letters to Timothy and Titus, he says that the elders are those who ,are sensible and discreet. In other words, they possess wisdom and sound judgment (1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:8; 2:2). In Acts 15, we have a beautiful record about what the church in Jerusalem did in making a major decision. After a long discussion, the apostles and the church say this: ,It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to do thus and so. ,It seemed good to us. This is wisdom. What is more astounding is that Luke uses these very words in his opening to his Gospel. ,It seemed good to me, having had perfect understanding of all things from the beginning, to write to you. It ,seemed good to Luke to write the Gospel called ,Luke, and the Holy Spirit inspired every word! Wisdom is not your own natural reasoning independent of God. It comes out of dependence on the Lord. What is more, true wisdom not only comes from God. True wisdom is Jesus Christ personified! So any piece of authentic wisdom that you receive comes from your Lord, for He is Wisdom. Note the following exhortations to exercise judgment, which is wisdom’s cousin:
The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention of a child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great God whom he calls his Father. There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of the Divinity. It is a subject so vast, that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity; so deep, that our pride is drowned in its infinity. Other subjects we can compass and grapple with; in them we feel a kind of self-content, and go our way with the thought, “Behold I am wise.” But when we come to this master science, finding that our plumb line cannot sound its depth, and that our eagle eye cannot see its height, we turn away with the thought… “I am but of yesterday, and know nothing.” No subject of contemplation will tend to humble the mind, than thoughts of God.
C.H. Spurgeon