True wisdom and false – how can you tell’ James Chapter 3 verses 13 – 18

True wisdom and false – how can you tell’        James Chapter 3 verses 13 – 18

The early Christian letters which we read in our New Testament were selected by the Church for inclusion because just as they were full of clear, practical advice for those first Christians facing all kinds of questions and problems from outside as well as inside the growing Church, so also is the wisdom they imparted vital for healthy and effective Christians and Churches in every generation. 

The letters, which simply burst with praise and thanksgiving for the new-found faith, life, and hope in Jesus, are reassuringly realistic about the dangers and deceits Christians will face both within the Church and from outside it; from the wolves within and the wolves without who, for their various reasons, want to stifle the life and snuff out the light that offers forgiveness and freedom to all. 

How much we need their wisdom today!

One of the very pressing questions, then as now, for Christians, was ‘where to find true wisdom and how to distinguish between true and false, between shepherds and wolves in sheep’s clothing?’ 

How do we know what and whom to believe? What criteria do we need to employ? Do I believe the Vicar because he always smiles at me, is kind to children, and loves dogs? Or do I believe him because, despite his many faults and failings, when preaching, he faithfully explains and applies God’s word? Or, is my thinking guided more by my feelings and by what I see and hear on the television – even though I know little or nothing about the credentials or agendas of those I see or hear?

The essential questions and issues the Church faces today are essentially the same as in James’ day because human nature is, essentially, the same. And it is through the pride-challenging message of the Gospel that we may discover a person’s essence - their real self. 

How do they respond to God’s message to them? That message is not – as many would have it, even in the Church - ‘You are all essentially very nice people and should carry on just as you are following your own wisdom or the wisdom of the world to be ‘free’ to do whatever you like’. No. It remains, because of what human nature still is, and however sophisticated and wise we think we’ve become, ‘Repent, and be baptised for the forgiveness of your sins ...and you will receive the gift of God’s Holy Spirit’; that Spirit who, promised Jesus, would ‘lead you into all truth.’ 

The problem is of course that people do not like to be told that they are sinners or that what they believe or do is sinful in God’s eyes: and so we should not be surprised that people do not like to hear such a reality check when we can so easily hide in our wishful thinking about ourselves and about the world. So very sadly, what the world does not understand or refuses to understand is that just such a reality check from God - the God who created us, and so understands us better than we do ourselves - is the first step to genuine freedom. 

The message of the Gospel, of reconciliation with God and new and abundant life with him, is the greatest message of the greatest love there is because it offers true freedom; freedom from the lies we believe about ourselves and from the deceits peddled by a world that only wants to enslave us into following and indulging our feelings and desires – regardless of the consequences.  

Let me give you a current example of this. I was listening to a T.V. programme last week in which there were four guests, one of whom was a Christian. The subject was gender identity and gender transitioning. Two of the guests argued passionately for teaching both - in primary schools. One of the guests, not the Christian, but a doctor of psychiatry, said this. ‘I am not a Christian or a religious person but my work is with children and teenagers and I have children of my own. I believe it is confusing, harmful, and a form of child abuse to press these self-indulgent adult agendas on impressionable and vulnerable children. 

What is more’ – and this is what I thought was most revealing from the professional expert –‘it is deeply worrying that feelings are now trumping not just historically accepted norms about human beings but our biology itself.’

And on another programme I heard a famous feminist historian warning that our current preoccupation with indulging how we feel against proven social and religious safeguards and human biological fact exactly reflects the state of previous such societies which very quickly and destructively fell to pieces.

I won’t apologise for citing this example: it is just one example of clear rebellion against what James in his letter calls ‘the wisdom from above’; that is, God’s wisdom. We must of course always treat those with whom we differ in love and with love because that was and is Jesus’ way, the only way that can be effective in changing people’s hearts and minds. But such love is not, is nothing like, the tolerance the world would have us practise; far from it! 

It is precisely because Jesus commanded us to love others that we are obliged to share with them such ‘wisdom from above’. Reading only portions of letters and Gospels Sunday by Sunday has its drawbacks, which is why I would very much encourage you to read this whole letter of James. To help you understand these verses I would just like to read you three earlier verses in the letter.       In chapter 1: 21 of his letter James says this.  

²¹ Therefore rid yourselves of everything that is sordid, all that overflowing malice, and humbly receive that implanted word which has the power to rescue your lives.

For James then, the ‘wisdom from above’ he equates with the one who came from above; the one whose teaching and message of reconciliation with God offers the freedom to live life not shackled by our own desires, or by the deceits of the world where these run contrary to God’s clear intentions for humanity, but by his perfect ways.

And in chapter 2 he reminds us v 8 that we are called ‘to keep the royal law’, that is, to love our neighbour as ourselves. So we have a God-given responsibility to ourselves and to our neighbours to follow the ‘wisdom from above’. It really couldn’t be clearer.

In the portion of the letter we have today, James is adamant about the character of Godly wisdom, about the real character of those who claim to expound it ,and about what is certainly not characteristic of it or of those who expound it faithfully. Verses 13 –15 are tough talking if ever there was! We can see from these, first, that godly behaviour and humility are the vehicles for heavenly wisdom: that is to say that love of God and neighbour, together with a desire to judge our own and the world’s wisdom by God’s wisdom, are the things which show who (v 13) is ‘wise and discerning’. 

Secondly, the opposite: that those whose motives arise from  (v 14) jealousy, contention, pride, and denying or decrying that ‘wisdom from above’ not only reveal their selfish and worldly motivation but even the unwitting or witting  influence from the one whom Jesus described as ‘the Father of Lies’, the Devil himself. And when we align ourselves, unwittingly or wittingly, with him and his rebellion, then (v16) see what results: ‘unruly behaviour and every kind of evil practice.’

This is why we must ask ourselves, ‘Who or what is informing and influencing our thinking about life and about the problems and issues we face both in the Church and in the world. Again, Jesus warned his disciples that the Devil can appear as ‘an angel of light’. So we must not be taken in by appearances of holiness or godliness or by flattering or indulging arguments. We need to test both the content of what is being advocated in the Church and in the world, and also the character of its advocates and the consequences or ‘fruit’ of it all.

We are in testing times because in the Church of England increasingly advocated and increasingly popular is a wisdom about life and about human beings that, however well-meaning or seemingly well-meaning, is contrary to what has been revealed by the ‘wisdom from above’. Again, I stress that we must deal lovingly with those who argue for this contrary wisdom; but we must also do so with godly wisdom. 

I’ve always found that a person’s response to the Gospel of forgiveness and reconciliation with God is a perfect starting point to discover where someone is really coming from: that and the teaching of Jesus and his Apostles. If the reply you receive is along the lines of: ‘Well, in this day and age that’s just naive’; or, ‘Personally I find that doctrine repulsive’; or, ‘Jesus did not have access to the same insights we now have into human nature’, you know you are going to need a bigger helping hand than usual from the Holy Spirit!

In v17 James spells out the nature and character of this ‘wisdom from above’. Each element he mentions here is vital; vital because, taken together, they help us to weed out the weak, the wilful, and the wishful-thinkers from amongst who consider themselves wise. Christians are called neither to be gullible nor to be cynical about the world and humanity but to be realists whose wisdom is that which ‘comes from above’, which has already been revealed in and taught by Jesus Christ. The faithful are not at liberty to change it or to try to improve upon it simply to curry favour or to ‘keep the peace’ or to maintain a false unity.

And so v18. We are called to be ‘peace makers’. The main way that the Church and all Christians are called to make peace that leads to genuine freedom, and produce fruit that is healthy, is faithfully and lovingly to present the world – and if necessary to remind the Church – with the gospel or ‘good news’ of God’s redeeming loving purposes in Christ. Peace-makers – especially of the Christian variety –do not tend to have peaceful lives: quite the opposite! We are called not to do nothing, not just to rail against injustice, iniquity, or perversions of the Gospel of true freedom, but to speak the truth in love and to do it. As the saying goes, ‘It is better to light a candle than to rail against the darkness’, a darkness that is always seeking ways to quench the light of Gospel freedom.


Again, as James tells us in the very first chapter of his letter, ‘If any one of you falls short in wisdom, they should ask God for it, and it will be given them.’ It is a wisdom that comes not so much – if at all! – through scholarship or by amassing a huge number of facts about God: it is a wisdom that comes from getting to know him personally through reading his word, welcoming his Spirit, and boldly standing up for him in the Church and the world. 

Now and again we meet people who have been already acon that journey for some time and we can see the results in their lives – in their love, in their wisdom, in their characters. They will tell you how difficult but also how rewarding and liberating it is. They will tell you of personal frailty and failure; certainly far more so than of progress or successes. They will prefer to speak of God’s graciousness and mercy, of having fallen and of having been picked up again and restored by a loving Heavenly Father. 

In a world where self-esteem and success are idolised, such people often remain unnoticed or accounted of little account. In reality it is they who are the giants: it is such godly character and wisdom, given from Heaven and grown on earth, that is the true humanity. As you go about your day, you will meet some like those in v16 and some of vs 17 and 18. Which would you rather spend time with? Which are you? Which would you like to become?