| Notes: | A story is told about four people who were the only people on board one of those small planes. There was the pilot, a pastor, a Boy Scout, and the smartest man in the world. All of a sudden, the pilot came back to the cabin and informed everybody that the plane was going down. Then he let them know that there were only three parachutes on board. He said, “I’ve got a wife and three kids at home.” So he grabbed a parachute and jumped out. The rest of them looked at each other until the genius stood up and grabbed one. He said, “I’m the smartest man in the world. Everybody needs my awesome brain power.” Then before they could say anything, he jumped out. Then the pastor smiled at the boy and said, “Son, you’re young and I’m prepared to meet the Lord. You take the last parachute and I’ll go down with the plane.” The Boy Scout just laughed and said, “No worries, pastor. The smartest man in the world just jumped out of the plane with my backpack on.”
I love that story, and it makes a good point. Smart people are not necessarily wise people, and let me take this a step further. Just because a person has been in church for many years, just because they know all the Bible stories and just because they have a lot of biblical knowledge, or even if they read their Bible one hour a day every day, did you know –this does not guarantee that they have wisdom. In our passage under consideration this morning, James is going to talk about it this way: how do you know if you have true wisdom or false wisdom? |
