Introduction
During my freshman year at Bob Jones University, the Founder, Dr. Bob Jones, Sr., maintained what Fundamentalists called a hot pulpit. The old gentleman was a master at coining phrases to drive home chunks of truth. The book is titled Things I Have Learned: Chapel Talks by Bob Jones, Sr. It is still in publication, and this is the promo paragraph on Amazon:
This is a volume of God given, Bible centered instruction on how to live as a Christian in the world. There is nothing fashionable about Dr. Jones’ message and some will not appreciate these sermons. His words, ringing with the reality of God’s claims on the life, burn deeply into the heart bringing conviction or serenity, tears of repentance or tears of joy. Your personal relationship to Jesus Christ, God’s Son, will determine whether you will react negatively or positively to this book. But you will react.
Perhaps this genre is a phenomenon of aging. Then again, it may be that Dr. Bob’s ministry to me, a one-year-old convert, was so impactful that over the past thirty years, I’ve adopted the model to use in my ministry.
Instruction of the Day
We had a substitute Sunday School teacher today. He is a long-time elder at Briarwood Presbyterian Church. By profession, he is a well-respected dentist in our community. His profession trained him to be attentive to details. Being an elder at Briarwood has trained him to be a serious student of the Word of God. So today, as is the norm at Briarwood, Sunday School was akin to attending a first-rate Bible college. The subject of the current quarter’s series is the character of God, and today’s focus was the wisdom of God, both its transcendence as a non-communicable character trait and its immanence as a communicable attribute to man.
Insight of the Day
While the teacher was engrossed in teaching this lesson on wisdom, his humorous self was evident as he folded in some of his own struggles in maturing and learning important lessons about gaining wisdom. One of these lessons concerned patience. I don’t remember his point because it prompted me to ponder the relationship between patience and wisdom. This occurred within the last ten minutes of class, and I became preoccupied with this relationship. By the time class ended, I had penned this phrase after the genre of old Dr. Bob Sr.
Patience is the product of the persistent exercise of wisdom executed under stress.
Conclusion
As with old Dr. Bob Sr., so with me. These insights are the culmination of practicing what the Bible calls meditation (the Hebrew word hagah—”to murmur, ponder, or muse; to talk through it to oneself”). This command occurs approximately thirty times in Scripture and is implied in numerous other times. While working through Joshua earlier this winter, I noted that one of the times this command is issued to Joshua is when he launches the campaign to wage war to take the Promised Land. I drew a parallel in my notes between that medication and beginning the Christian life upon regeneration. I was viewing the Christian life warfare, and the meditation upon the Word is the necessary supply line. “Every soldier must be connected to his supply to effectively win the battles.” This insight was born because of a previous study of 1 Peter 1:3-4 (the warehouse of God’s supplies) and the mandate to apply all diligence by our faith to supply the following lists of character traits.
Implementation
If you are praying for patience and expecting a sudden infusion of self-control under pressure, you have the cart before the horse. Patience is the result of developing wisdom, which in turn enables you to discern what is transpiring in the irritating situation and thereby to determine a course of action that is calming, corrective, and expressed with control. So, if you need to develop patience, seek wisdom through meditating on God’s word, where you will learn to develop this communicable attribute of wisdom and thereby be able to practice patience under duress. You might begin this wisdom-building with Deuteronomy 6:1-3; Proverbs 1-3, 8; Psalm 119; 1 Corinthians 1:30 (the life and ministry of Jesus); Colossians 2:3; James 1, 3.