Wisdom and Good Works

So the Old Testament books can feel a bit weird, right? On the one hand you have laws and commands in the Law, and on the other hand you have Proverbs where "wisdom" is described as something like "guidelines and principles", to reduce suffering and to have a "well-ordered" and blessed life. So how do we reconcile this? Does God care about obedience to specific commands, or does he want us to live a wise and well-ordered life? Is it about "doing good", or about "being wise" (or "living well")?

But Jesus took specific pains to break down the common oversimplifications of "doing good" and "being wise". It's not enough to just "not murder", there's a lot more to it, and then also, rich and well-off people have a difficult time "entering the kingdom of heaven". The Sermon on the Mount is probably the most centralized and complete picture of this "deconstruction". As an aside, Ecclesiastes also deconstructs the myth that the outcome of "being wise" means being rich, powerful, smart, or successful.

For the former ("doing good"), the Great Commandments (loving God, loving neighbor) are given as the foundation and basis of the Old Testament Law ("on these two commands hang all the Law and the Prophets"), but of course, they are not as easy to follow. How do I actually "love" someone, or seek another person's good?

And then for the latter ("being wise"), you have the "Kingdom of God", where everything seems backwards. The last are first, those who lose their life gain it, the poor are called "blessed", the wealthy are far from God, and those who know they are very sinful are somehow more righteous than the people outwardly following the Law very well. What kind of "wisdom" is this?

So true wisdom helps us to understand both how to do right and how to live, at the same time, in a practical and day-to-day way. Loving others and living well requires us to know and understand the people around us, and the circumstances we are in together. To make this more concrete, Paul spends a LOT of time establishing that interpersonal conflict is MUCH worse than most people realize. Over and over he tells Christians to "be of one mind", and that kindness, forgiving others, and "bearing one another's burdens" is the hallmark of "love", which "fulfils the law".

The "how" of all this is wisdom (or more specifically "godly" wisdom). Wisdom forces us to consider who a person is, what that person needs, what their circumstances are, and what would encourage or help that person. "What is going on in this person's life? What can I congratulate or comfort them about? Whoops, I lost my temper at this person, how should I apologize? How can I make it right?" These can be hard questions, so we ask God for wisdom in handling these kinds of circumstances. We also receive wisdom from reading and thinking about and understanding the Bible, and many times a specific incident will bring to mind a passage from scripture.

So perhaps one of the most striking revelations in the New Testament, is this extremely clear unity of wisdom and morality, of "doing good" and "doing/living well", to the glory of God.

Against "Virtue Ethics"

The journal First Things recently posted an article called "Protestants Need Virtue Ethics", where it argues for Protestants to work towards a general or consistent "virtue ethics", trying to determine what is virtuous in the modern age, and expressing concern over certain recent policies by the current administration.

On the one hand, as a Protestant, I do agree that we Protestants can often do more to consider how exactly we should live out our Christian faith. We have, at times, conflated "doing good" with "works righteousness".

However, this article seems to want to hash out a universal or generally applicable "virtue system", in the spirit of Aquinas, and I don't think that is a very sound foundation for such an endeavor. The book mentioned in this article, "Ethics Beyond Rules", appears to get stuck on this point, establishing the "problem" of "moral relativism", without considering his own use of the words "moral" or "absolute" or "relative".

Protestantism, at its best, highlights that many important things -- even such things as church governance or hierarchy -- can only be considered "good" in a cultural and/or historical context. Even the Old Testament Law itself contains many specific instructions and commands, that even the New Testament writers like Paul freely reimagine and reinterpret to best fit their own circumstance. Paul takes the instruction of "muzzling an ox treading out the grain", not to narrowly apply this command to other farming animals, but dives down into the *principle* of it, to resurface and argue for paying wages to those who preach the Word. That is a transformative way to apply God's law, and it gives us a model for seeking to apply it to our modern situation.

And what are these "principles"? Jesus says clearly that it's not the Ten Commandments, but rather the Great Commandments -- "loving God" and "loving neighbor" -- that establish the foundation for the Ten Commandments and all the rest of the moral law. Again, it's NOT that the Ten Commandments show us how to love, it's that love shows us how to properly keep the Ten Commandments. And indeed, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus expounds on murder and adultery to get to the underlying principles, to give us a proper and full understanding of each commandment.

And if we were still confused about the meaning of "love", the New Testament spends a lot of time making it clear. Kindness, patience, not keeping a record of wrong, humbleness, seeking the good of others... all of these paint a consistent and clear pictures of a "new virtue", one enabled by the Holy Spirit, which is repeatedly stated as "fulfilling the requirements of the Law." But it requires us to *seek out and know that which is outside ourself*. To extend the metaphor a bit, in order to do good in today's society, we need to *know and understand the society* well enough to love it best. In that sense there IS something "relative" about this kind of "moral" behavior. The PRINCIPLE is absolute and timeless, the APPLICATION of it is relative to the time and place of each Christian. So let's teach Christians how to "love", how to reach outside themselves, and thus live "virtuous" lives in the circumstances they find themselves in.

Beatitudes

One thing that really sticks out is that many of the lines have a "punchline". So it's clear that many of the people who were poor and powerless came to listen to him (and even to be fed by his miracles). So he says things like, "blessed are the poor..." and "blessed are those that hunger and thirst...", as thought he was giving a message about self-denial or the spiritual benefit of poverty or fasting.

In fact, I think there's evidence that the Pharisees spoke like this, judging by the rules about giving money set aside for parents (Matt 15:5) or how Jesus pointed out the widow who gave her last coins to the temple, right after saying that the Pharisees "devour widows’ houses" (Mark 12:40). They likely encouraged giving to the Temple as a "religious duty", as an act of worship to God. In other passages Jesus call out the Pharisees for receiving but never giving, forgetting the acts of charity and care for the poor.

But as he does so often, Jesus takes us from the "external" to the "internal", taking us away from mere outward facts or behavior, and to a deeper truth: "Blessed are the poor... *in spirit*" and "Blessed are those that hunger and thirst... *for righteousness*". It's not outward poverty that is a blessing, but a "humble and contrite heart" that God wants.

And if the above virtues are about the blessings of humbleness before God, Jesus also goes on to speak of other virtues, like being "merciful" and "peacemakers". These seem to be virtues expressed to *other people*.

Jesus goes on to cover other "moral teachings", and likely is directly correcting what that the Pharisees likely taught. Jesus again and again moves "sin" to what is inside of us, to our intentions, such as moving past the simple act of "murder" to the hate and resentment burning inside all of us. Sin and virtue are matters of the heart.

This is all very consistent with how Jesus speaks of the Great Commandments of "loving God" and "loving neighbor", which "fulfill the entire law". They are integral with the "kingdom of heaven" which Jesus mentions in the first verse, but of course also mentions many other times in his ministry. Jesus gives us a much more profound way to think of blessing and virtue and "good deeds".

And of course this whole sermon ends with this: "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock." It's not just trusting the content of these words, but trusting Jesus who speaks them. It's trusting Jesus who exemplifies all of these virtues in himself.