My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Col. 2:2-3) NIV
In Christ are hidden treasure of wisdom, as Paul wrote. This should be no surprise, since Jesus is Lord and God and fully divine. This wisdom no doubt embraces all of creation if not more. So when Jesus turned water into wine, I am sure that he knew all about nuclear particle physics. When he told the wind to be still, to the utter amazement of the disciples, he knew all about every law of thermodynamics. When he delivered people from the demonic and more, he knew all about all spiritual forces and powers of darkness. And don’t forget his teaching that amazed many people, and his responses when teachers of the law put him in seemingly impossible logical traps. But do we readily look to the wisdom of Jesus for the healing of our souls, for dealing with the deepest pain in our past, and more? Given the proliferation of therapeutic techniques – even so much in the Church – I wonder.
Dr Mark Baker is a Christian counselor who fully believes that the wisdom we first should seek is that of Jesus — see his book, “The Greatest Psychologist Who Ever Lived: Jesus and the Wisdom of the Soul”, Harper SanFrancisco 2001.
The inside jacket of the book states that even with more than one hundred years of modern psychology, there has not been any improvement on “the principles and lessons taught by the greatest doctor of the human soul — Jesus.” Who are we, where are we going, how do we relate to others and self and God, what should be the priorities and purpose of life, how do you realize true inner peace, what really is love and how do we receive it, how do people develop, how do we understand those around us, how do people think and understand, what about sin, how do we achieve wholeness — and that is only the beginning of what Jesus taught!
The wisdom of Jesus was quite evident in the healing prayer sessions of one of our conferences years ago in BC, where we endeavored to let Jesus reveal truth for each person and direct the prayer session. A few times there was the “temptation to jump in” on our part, but we chose to wait, and soon Jesus led the prayer time in a way that no one anticipated. I can remember one session quite vividly, where over half the time the person who came for prayer was in tears, hearing directly from Jesus the exact words and truth they needed. There was such a healing and restoration that the person was almost overwhelmed.
The wisdom of Jesus – simple, profound, direct, perfectly accurate, deeply loving – how can you ever improve on that? Look at the Gospels and you can read where Jesus taught on love, joy, peace, friendship, marriage, pain, sorrow, anger, hatred, betrayal, acceptance, rejection, spiritual abuse, acceptance, forgiveness, sin, righteousness, justification, identity, grief, death, idolatry, eternal life — to name a few of the most crucial and frequent issues faced by all people. Yet sadly, it seems to me at least, that too often the Church relies on the wisdom of the world through all manner of therapies and counseling methods that purport to be Christian. While we can be thankful for the true and good things learned from the thinking of this world, always better to focus on and depend upon Jesus!
