Do you remember the days when certain colour combinations were outlawed by the guardians of dress sense? Men never wore pink. Black was never worn with brown. And there was a little rhyme that told us ‘Blue and Green should never be seen except with something in between’. An alternative ended with ‘… except when in the washing machine.’ We were taught such things as ‘absolute’ rules and yet, today, pink is a colour embraced by men and women alike and black/brown or blue/green combinations are everywhere to be seen.
When Jesus began to teach his disciples that he must suffer and die, Peter took him on one side and told him he was wrong. Jesus and death was a combination that Peter could not imagine existing together. What did Jesus say by way of reply? “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” (Mark 9:33). Turned out that Jesus was right and Peter, despite the strength of his opinion, was wrong. He was merely reflecting human concerns. The road to the cross that Jesus walked was, as Paul would later put it, part of that wisdom of God that sharply contrasts with human wisdom.
Religious people tend to hold plenty of opinions; it goes with the territory. Look at those opinions, though, and you’ll find many of them to be differing to the point of even, sometimes, being contradictory. That strikes me as a lot of human wisdom and divine wisdom all washing around together in the views we hold. How then do we ensure, insofar as we can, that we are following God’s wisdom and not our own?
Paul gives us the answer in his letter to the Christians in Corinth. Learn to listen to the Holy Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. (1 Corinthians 2 v. 10-12)
The result of that, Paul concludes, is that we will not be subject to ‘merely human judgments’ because, through the Spirit, we will know the ‘mind of Christ’. How utterly amazing and what a privilege. I’m still a learner and can’t profess to be anywhere near the mind of Christ but I do look to that same Holy Spirit to guide my thinking and actions through each new day.
And with that I’m off to pair some brown trousers with black shoes!
Prayer: Lord God, I don’t want my actions and judgments to be based merely on my own human wisdom. I need you and your guidance. By your Spirit, come and help me to see the world through your eyes and with your wisdom. Amen.