Reading this passage from Matthew
feels a little like holding the leashes of two dogs, each straining in a
different direction. One dog pulls us in the direction of our thinking, our
intellect. That’s what the first part of the passage is about. Jesus teaches us
about wisdom and intellect in vv. 25-27. The second dog pulls us toward our
feelings. Jesus teaches about feeling weary in vv. 28-30. We need to guide
these two dogs to go in the same direction in order to get our lives
together.
A
head trip
We might scratch our heads at what
Jesus says in the first part of our passage. When Jesus says, “I thank you,
Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the
wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants,” we don’t know what
Jesus might mean. If we start with the first part of that verse, we might feel
the need to ask Jesus some questions.
We might ask Jesus about the wisdom
tradition from the Hebrew Bible. At the heart of wisdom theology stands
Proverbs 9:10, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the
knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” According to the sage of Proverbs, a
worshipful attitude toward God enables one to begin the process of acquiring
wisdom. The verse links a worshipful attitude toward God with wisdom. In Proverbs,
personified wisdom says,
“My
fruit is better than gold, even fine gold, and my yield than choice silver.”1
The Bible praises wisdom. Observing God’s creation
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