Tolstoy, after Rousseau, on Knowledge and Wisdom

“Real wisdom is not the knowledge of everything, but the knowledge of which things in life are necessary, which are less necessary, and which are completely unnecessary to know. Among the most necessary knowledge is the knowledge of how to live well, that is, how to produce the least possible evil and the greatest goodness in one’s life. At present, people study useless sciences, but forget to study this, the most important knowledge.”

thinking about: Luke 14:25-33

"Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, 'If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, "This man began to build and was not able to finish." Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.'"

In his book, "Mere Christianity," C.S. Lewis asks the question, "How Much Of Myself Must I Give?" as he considers with us what it means to be Christian. In my own words, to be Christian means the surrender of all. To be Christian means that all our inordinate loves and affections topple at the feet of Christ. We get to hold on to nothing save that which God gives us in Christ Jesus. Two thoughts come to mind here: first, when a person catches a glimpse of the sinfulness of his own heart in the light the Holiness of God through the moral law, he is faced with a crises. His conscience is informed by God's Holy Spirit that he must let go of himself and all he holds dear. Bonhoeffer would say that person is at the border of his existence--he knows he must either die in his sin, or die to self in the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though this is necessary for initial salvation, this also remains true throughout all of life.

Years ago when I was in Bible College, I had some time on my hands and reasoned that, since I was going to be in the Pastoral Ministry, I will most likely be burying people as well as marrying them. Since I was near a Funeral Home at that time I thought I would drop in and ask for a tour. I think for the first time in his life, the Funeral Director did not know what to do with himself when some guy pops in, "hey, can you give me a look-see? What do you do here?" He graciously took me into a very clean, white back room with a large metal table in the middle, a deep groove ran around the edge of the table toward a drain at the foot. The room looked like a combination operating room/beauty salon: medical instruments amidst make-up and hair styling products.

I stared at the table, realizing that this was not a table one hops up on to have some things fixed that one may hop off again and carry on with the rest of life. No, one gets put on that table and one gets removed from that table to be prepared for a going away party. A cadaver on the table is just that. Nothing in the world makes a difference to the person whose body lies on that table. The person is gone, the body is dead. Dead is dead. No life.

When people are faced with this stark realization that they must repent of their sin, that they must let it go, that they must die with Christ, they fear and they freeze. When Jesus talked about counting the cost, He meant all or nothing. One cannot die "just a little" and keep what is most precious to them--and we all know what the precious can do. The precious will kill us anyway. When we die to sin in Christ Jesus, we are dead to sin and are made alive in Christ Jesus. That body is dead on the slab and cannot continue in the realm in which it once was living. How much must one give? All. All = everything.

This was the reality the rich young ruler faced Jesus when Jesus told him to go sell all he had, then come and follow. Here was a young man who grew up in a religious home. The past couple of years his house was used as a ministry base for Jesus, who came and went, teaching, healing, making disciples and making enemies. Once he asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus points out he has kept all the moral law, except that he loves his stuff more than God--let go of the stuff and follow! This was devestating news to the rich young ruler. He made his decision, and left, distraught. Think of it this way: the reason why Jesus says to count the cost is not build a movement, but to thin the crowds. Chuck Smith explains:

"Now, you count the cost. Unless you are willing to forsake everything you can't be My disciple. Unless you are willing to take up your cross, you can't be My disciple. Unless you love Me supremely, you cannot be My disciple. The terms of discipleship are harsh. They are severe. And it is wrong when people tell you just accept Jesus and you are not going to have any more problems. Listen, many times when you accept Jesus your problems are just beginning. It is not easy. It is not going to be easy. The Lord doesn't say it is going to be easy. He said it is going to be tough and you better sit down first and count the cost. You better not get started in it if you can't finish it, or are not willing to finish it. You need to make an accounting here and determine whether or not you are really willing to pay the price to go all the way through, because unless you are willing to forsake everything, really, you can't be My disciple."

Lewis shows there are two results for the Christian. Either we do what is right (righteous) by obediently letting Christ live His life through us; or, we try to meet the demands of the "natural self" while at the same time try to live in a manner pleasing to God. The latter will produce frustration, distress, discontent, even anger. I've tried to understand why this is so. At it's root we find selfishness--one is more consumed with making a living (as it were) than in life itself. Men would rather die happy (that is, pain free) than free.

Jesus came back to the house with his disciples. They had a meal upstairs that night, in the upper room, then went out to the garden of Gethsemane to pray--in the dark. John Mark, hearing the noise of movement in the house, wraps himself in a bedsheet and follows. When Jesus is arrested, the guards tried to grab at the young man, but he leaves everything behind . . . everything. Later, he travels with the apostle Paul, preaching repentance and salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is even inspired to write about his experiences when Jesus walked the earth . . .

Lewis describes the Christian way as the harder, and easier way. Harder, because the Lord Jesus Christ does not come to torment our natual self, but kill it. He says, "I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree cut down. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the one you think wicked--the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours."

What is most difficult about giving our all to God is that God must get our all. Is God asking the impossible? When it comes down to it, the question does not matter because He is the one who is doing the work for us. Simply consider what He's done already that is beyond the realm of imagination--and if God did NOT do those things, we must admit it would certainly take a being greater than God to think them up! Is it hard? Of course it is, that 's why He is the one who must do it for us!

What areas in our lives are most difficult to give up? Those areas where our affections are most strong. Our idols are large in those places. These are the places where we feel good, powerful, in control. Giving over to someone else is more than threatening to us. It is devastating.

Christianity is not a way of looking at life; rather, Christianity is the changed life.

Popular posts from this blog

“Men and women who saw God in the Bible: Why did they not all die?”

A Sonnet

Finished Reading: “An Essay Concerning the True Original Extent and End of Civil Government.”