There is a difference between truth and wisdom. It is the difference between being right and doing what is right in the right way. It is the difference between knowing the truth and knowing how to communicate it in a powerful, relevant way.
You can gain knowledge of the truth reading Scripture, but you will not have the wisdom to know how convey it properly if you are not a student of your environment and your audience. You must be able to recognize when you have a poverty of wisdom and bring it to the feet of God, which requires being "radically honest" with all of your doubts, questions and concerns in the presence of God. It is in the cauldron of this struggle that one is able find wisdom in Spirit and in Truth.
Both Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul, guided by the Holy Spirit, demonstrated mastery of both the truth and wisdom in all their interactions. In addition to being students of Scripture and following the Holy Spirit, Jesus and Paul were also careful students of the culture around them and were both radically honest before God.
I see Fundamentalism as a movement that has been ever shrinking within Church and the wider culture because it has found a false security in merely being able to say that this or that truth is "in the Bible". Fundamentalism has often held up Scripture as something that should be above wresting and questioning, when wresting and questioning before God is necessary to gain wisdom.
Having an environment that values the truth in wisdom means encouraging "radical honesty" before God and humility toward Scripture but not demanding blind obedience to Scripture at the expense of wrestling with it. Particularly as it relates to Biblical sexuality, I want to be part of a movement that takes up the banner of Biblical truth on sexuality that Fundamentalism sought to protect and advance while avoiding where Fundamentalism failed at wisdom. I want to be "radically honest" before God, and be a student the culture to know how to communicate the truth of Biblical sexuality in a powerful and relevant way.
You can gain knowledge of the truth reading Scripture, but you will not have the wisdom to know how convey it properly if you are not a student of your environment and your audience. You must be able to recognize when you have a poverty of wisdom and bring it to the feet of God, which requires being "radically honest" with all of your doubts, questions and concerns in the presence of God. It is in the cauldron of this struggle that one is able find wisdom in Spirit and in Truth.
Both Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul, guided by the Holy Spirit, demonstrated mastery of both the truth and wisdom in all their interactions. In addition to being students of Scripture and following the Holy Spirit, Jesus and Paul were also careful students of the culture around them and were both radically honest before God.
I see Fundamentalism as a movement that has been ever shrinking within Church and the wider culture because it has found a false security in merely being able to say that this or that truth is "in the Bible". Fundamentalism has often held up Scripture as something that should be above wresting and questioning, when wresting and questioning before God is necessary to gain wisdom.
Having an environment that values the truth in wisdom means encouraging "radical honesty" before God and humility toward Scripture but not demanding blind obedience to Scripture at the expense of wrestling with it. Particularly as it relates to Biblical sexuality, I want to be part of a movement that takes up the banner of Biblical truth on sexuality that Fundamentalism sought to protect and advance while avoiding where Fundamentalism failed at wisdom. I want to be "radically honest" before God, and be a student the culture to know how to communicate the truth of Biblical sexuality in a powerful and relevant way.
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