wisdom’s children

I heard a presentation once on how the way we think shapes the way we interact. The presenter talked about two kinds of thinking.

One, which she found to be by far most prevalent, she called soldier thinking. Soldier thinkers, she explained, see two sides to everything. If you’re not on the right side, you must be defeated. Any ideas that help your side are defended vigorously. Any information that helps the other side is attacked relentlessly.

Sounds a bit like our national discourse these days, doesn’t it? But it was also true in Jesus day. Look at what he said to the religious leaders in Luke 7:33-35: “’For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, “He has a demon.” The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, “Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” But wisdom is proved right by all her children.’”

I think it was one of Bill Clinton’s people who said, during his presidency, that it doesn’t matter what’s true. What matters is what you can make people think might be true. That’s the kind of thinking that can make evil out of both abstinence and drinking. That’s soldier thinking.

The other kind of thinking this presenter called scout thinking. She noted that in war a scout’s job is to find out the truth. How many enemy are there? Where are they? Can that river be crossed? Is there snow in the pass? Accurate information is worth lives in combat, and it does no good to deceive yourself with things you’d like to be true. Scout thinkers don’t let themselves be seduced by what they want to believe; they constantly look for evidence of the truth.

I think that gets close to what Jesus meant with his last comment. Who are the children of wisdom? Aren’t they the thoughtful conclusions and appropriate actions that come from understanding what is true? If wisdom is knowing what’s right in light of what’s true, then wisdom’s children must grow up with a clear-eyed vision for truth.

Soldier thinking can get you in trouble. Soldier thinking wins no new friends. Soldier thinking ensures only that you will have a lifetime of conflict.

Wisdom’s children, on the other hand, avoid all that. Wisdom’s children know that all truth springs from the one who named himself Truth, and lies and conflict were never his way. When we accept our new place as Truth’s brothers, we have to set soldier thinking aside and look only for the truth.