The Trouble for Smart Guys

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. - Isaiah 55:8-9

For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

- I Corinthians 1:25

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Intelligence is the ability to make sense of the world.

It is the ability to learn and understand information: to absorb the raw data and then to corollate, categorize, and connect the facts together in a way that helps you see the big picture from all the disparate pieces.

Intelligent people are used to making sense of things around them and then leveraging that sense to their advantage.

It is not an inherently noble trait: like beauty or wealth, intelligence can be used in righteous or unrighteous ways. There are just as many (if not more) selfish, unscrupulous and dishonorable intelligent people as there are humble, caring and honorable ones.

But it is a rare gift, which is why when our world sees it in a person, they are often celebrated and revered. Intelligent people tend to do well vocationally and receive deference and credence from the rest of us through credentialing, platforming and installation in positions of authority.

Christians are no different from the rest of the world in this. We seem to feel more comfortable and confident with our pastors and leaders being more intelligent than the rest of us. We want the guy standing in the pulpit and explaining the scriptures to be smarter than we are. After all, you don’t want to be taught something by someone to whom you feel intellectually superior.

But there is a notable catch with intelligence that ought to make each and every believer hesitate before uncritically imbibing whatever some smart Christian serves up to them.

There are a couple of important things which God has made clear that need to be considered here: first, intelligence is not wisdom. And while the Bible spends many pages and much ink extolling the benefits of wisdom and exhorting people to pursue it, it does not restrict the possession of wisdom to smart people.

James 1:5 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” God gives wisdom to any who ask, and He gives it liberally. This is partly because wisdom does not corollate to intelligence; it is not an issue primarily of the intellect but of the will. Wisdom is the willingness to take and apply truth which God has revealed to us in His Word.

The simplest and most unlearned among us can be wise if they are willing to be so. Having a great mind has nothing to do with being a wise person.

Concurrently, smart people are used to things making sense. Making sense of things is what intelligence enables people to do. This is all well and good in-and-of itself. But our comprehension of the truth and character of God are dependent on faith, not intelligence. (“Without faith it is impossible to please God,” - Hebrews 11:6.)

Or, to say it another way, when interacting with the truth of God we find in the Bible, there will come times when things do not appear to make any sense. In a way, this fact should make sense all on its own: after all, we are fallen, mortal, sinful, temporal beings dealing with the transcendent, eternal, holy, omniscient, almighty Creator of all reality. The notion that He would always make sense to us is either profoundly ignorant or profoundly arrogant or both.

But there will come times when our reason is directly challenged by the revelation of God. He will require us to respond not in understanding or comprehension but in faith alone. What He says or does will not be able to be grasped by even the smartest of people and it is in that moment that the very intelligent have a greater hurdle to clear than the rest of us.

Because while most are accustomed to living in a world that doesn’t always make sense, the smart people are used to being able to sort everything out. When they encounter a situation they can’t make sense of no matter how hard they try, they are liable to be even more unsettled than the rest.

When a clear reading of scripture requires Christians to believe two seemingly contradictory things (the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man in salvation, for instance) and then to trust that God will resolve that tension in ways we cannot comprehend, those more used to figuring things out tend to have a more difficult time.

The danger here is that the plain teaching of God gets set aside for something else that appears to makes sense. What is at work here is a subtle, latent form of idolatry: “God can only ever be something I can wrap my mind around.”

The temptation for the intelligent Christian is to compress and constrain God’s truth according to the confines of his own understanding. Brilliant as the person may be, God is not yet even beginning where the sum total of all of our minds begin. So to explain away Scripture because you can’t comprehend it is to de facto make yourself the determiner of truth.

Do not accept unbiblical statements or ideas from smart Christians simply because they are smart. The Word of God alone ought to be our standard for what we believe and how we act. Intelligent people will struggle in their own ways with the same transcendent realities and sinful inclinations as the rest of us. Their intelligence does not mean they understand the Bible in some higher way that is inaccessible to the rest of us.

Like the rich young ruler who couldn’t quite bring himself to part ways with what he felt made him special, the highly intelligent may find they have a more difficult time laying down their own understanding at the foot of God’s revelation.

But for all of us, the willingness to lay aside our reason in order to accept what God has revealed is a necessity for a healthy walk of faith.

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Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
    and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
    and he will make straight your paths.
- Proverbs 3:5-6