Friends: Jesus pursues us, and it is wisdom to allow Him to catch us. Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there, and to the sons and daughters they love. Blessings, Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #1023

June 23, 2026

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Proof of Wisdom

By Bob Walters

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge … Listen, my son, to your father’s teaching …” Proverbs 1:7-8

Almost anyone can pick up a Bible and immediately understand the Book of Proverbs.  It is easily the most accessible, common-sense, non-mystical collection of divine advice, observation, and wisdom scripture has to offer.

Granted, one must possess an ear for biblical language and expression. The hermeneutic, or syntax, of a word like “fear,” washed through ancient translations, doesn’t mean to be afraid and timid.  “Fear of the Lord” means to be solemn and respectful with a full dose of appreciation for whom “the one true God” actually is. He’s not an idol or an idea; He is Lord of all wisdom, truth, reality, and Creation, and we meet Him fully in the person of Jesus.

This is where the secular world starts to wobble. “Common sense” contains an acceptable note of authority, but when knowledge includes “God,” well, now we start asking for proof God exists.  And I think we have, primarily, the ancient Greeks (Socrates, etc.) to thank for that interruption in wisdom’s chain of custody, and more recently, the Enlightenment’s recalibration of man’s position before God.

To be brief, and move quickly on to the next point, the Greeks tested reality with proof: if it cannot be seen or touched, it is not real.  I.e., prove God, or there is no God. And despite Christian influence, the Enlightenment (1600s-1800s), boiled down largely to man defining God rather than God defining man, or ignoring / defying God altogether.

These are humanists and atheists who may see some moral value in the Bible, but not God’s primacy.  God, it must be understood, is seen personally with the eyes and touch of one’s heart and intellect, unlimited by tactile experience or sage syllogism.

So, as we discussed last week, “proof” of God is faith itself: deeply unsatisfying – or perhaps we should say, unreasonably shallow – for the proof-demanding secularist / atheist.  Give me evidence, or give me a different story! Alas, the point is missed.

My life lived is the true proof of my faith, if I choose to accept the gift God offers.

Without revealing names, last week I mentioned a really smart (Mensa), life-long, dear friend who has a deep Christian faith and a loving son who claims atheism. They talk about it weekly. Here is a piece of the response my friend had to the column:

“We have been discussing the book, The Incoherence of the Philosophers, by Al-Ghazali, an 11th century scholar and polymath of the Islamic Golden Age. The book blurb states, ‘… [Ghazali] challenges the assumptions that philosophical reasoning alone can yield certainty in ultimate matters.’”

In other words, philosophers may not know everything. My friend continues:

“I agree. [My son] agrees. Where we differ? Philosophize all you want. Faith is consent by the individual. I consent fully and without reservation. I require no further proof nor do I believe that these ‘ultimate matters’ can be reduced to any proof.  Define God. Go ahead. The words you use and the thoughts you have are at best derivative of our human experience and knowledge. That's reality, but how do you describe the indescribable? God's power and majesty may surpass anything we could ever imagine.”

Adding, “… I have given my consent. I live my life as a challenge to others to give theirs. That's why Sunday is my favorite day of the week with a person I love, [my son].”

Love is the greatest gift of faith, and consent the greatest proof of wisdom.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes Father’s Day this year is also his friend’s birthday, so happy birthday, RG. Btw, Proverbs chapters 1-7, 10, and 13 all begin with phrases about sons. Walters is not one to write or hi-lite in his Bible, and has only one passage underlined, Proverbs 23:15-16.

Friends: Christianity’s great challenge to secular intellect is the truth and reality embodied in the mystery of God. Man wants evidence, Jesus insists on faith. Blessings, Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #979

August 19, 2025

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Embracing the Mystery

By Bob Walters

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. … what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.” – Hebrews 11:1,3 ESV

Hebrews 11 is the great New Testament catalog of the Old Testament prophets and faithful whose trust in God exemplified and to this day remain object lessons commending the promises of God. Jesus is all the proof we need.

“Proof,” however, looms across the non-theological firmament as that which must be provided in understandable, tangible, empirical, human terms – i.e. evidence – to validate God’s reality. Faith, the non-faithful loudly proclaim, is not proof enough. 

I blame the ancient Greeks for re-casting reality out of the realm of Godly faith and instead funneling God’s presence and purpose as things to be tucked away from true intellect. Not to pick on Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle – great Greek thinkers and educators who sensed the necessity and logic of the existence of One True God – but their final reality was governed only by that which could be seen, defined, and explained by humans to humans. Divine mystery, evidently, could not be part of reality.

The problem here is so simple that great minds can’t grasp it; God’s mind is different from ours. He says so himself in Isaiah 55:8-9, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as heavens are higher than earth, so are my ways higher than yours, and my thoughts than yours.”

Humanity’s greatest minds, if they be slaves to physical evidence, haven’t thought through that the one who created our minds – granted, in His own image – has a perpetual leg up on what and how a human mind might conceive.  The highest, most logical and legitimate reality a human should expect – should depend on – is that our Creator knows more than we do.  That insults many self-congratulating human minds.

But I believe there is more.  It is not just that God is smarter, eternal, more righteous, more creative, more loving, and more everything than humans.  “Higher,” I submit, truly means “different.” We think how we limitedly think; God is unconstrained.

Humans are stuck in the closed crosshairs of time, space, matter, probability, and aspiration, with only an occasional peak behind the divine curtain of God’s intentions and the mind of Christ. God, on the other hand, is not “stuck.”

As humans our only mental ability to get “unstuck” resides in a mystery that Paul refers to as “the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16), and to “have the same mind in you that was in Christ.” (1 Timothy 2:5). The first suggests the illuminating indwelling of the Holy Spirit that shifts our perspective to think like Christ, and the second to model His humility, selflessness, obedience … and His trust in God.

These are among the free – and underappreciated – gifts we receive with faith in Christ. If we lack wisdom, James 1:5 invites us to “to ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault.” We are never shy about asking in prayer, in Christ’s name, to fix our problems, heal our wounds, or cleanse our sins, both for ourselves and others.

So why won’t we deeply accept God’s offer of wisdom unlocked by our faith? Because we are thinking in worldly terms of needing an explanation rather than, in faith, accepting the mystery of not being able to entirely explain the gift. It is still real and true.

Western culture loves a good mystery as entertainment, but the very best mystery is when our faith leads us to relationship with God through truth in Christ.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is relieved he doesn’t have to explain everything. Btw, the Greeks mentioned lived during the period between the Bible’s Testaments.