According to wisdom from below, people can transform God’s creation into a paradise by correcting some basic flaws in the world as God made it. The proposed solution is always some simplistic reduction of reality. There are crusades to get rid of private property, crusades to get rid of certain classes of people or certain races of people, crusades to get rid of fossil fuels, and so on and so on. Some people really believe in these efforts. What all of these causes have in common is that they are irrational leaps of faith. There is no objective evidence that these efforts would do anything other than harm if they were successful.

There are multiple examples of the current woke craziness, but I think that there are three that stand out from the rest. The first is the new legal definition of marriage to include not only the union of a man and a woman but also the union of a man and a man or of a woman and a woman. The second is the recent allowance for certain biological men to access women’s locker rooms and to dominate women’s sports. The third is the recent rejection of many of the virtues of western civilization as systemic forms of white supremacy. Why are such things happening in our culture, and why are they happening now? I think that a key to answering these questions is understanding what James 3:17 calls wisdom from above and the alternate wisdom which is wisdom from below.
In a nutshell, wisdom from above is a wisdom rooted in the fear of God, and wisdom from below is a wisdom rooted in rebellion against God. From the perspective of wisdom from above, wisdom from below is foolish. From the perspective of wisdom from below, wisdom from above is foolish. Everyone today is living a life that is some combination of these two contradictory forms of wisdom.
For those who do not know Jesus, wisdom from below dominates their lives, but not absolutely. Wisdom from below saturates and taints the totality of their experience, but wisdom from below does not dominate them absolutely. A total domination by wisdom from below would be fatal. No one could live a life absolutely dominated by wisdom from below. Wisdom from below leads to deadly lifestyles and actions. God restrains wisdom from below in the lost, and uses wisdom from above to exercise a moderating influence over them. That is the only reason why the lost are able to survive in this world. That is also why no one is as evil as he could be. The worst of people could always be worse than they are.
For those who know Jesus, wisdom from above dominates their lives, but not absolutely, at least not in this life. Their souls will not be made perfect in holiness until the time of their physical death. Wisdom from above saturates and elevates the totality of their experience, but they still have to struggle in this life with a continuing influence of wisdom from below. That is why no one in this life is perfect, and why even the best people may fail us at times.
So all who are now alive, both those who know Jesus and those who don’t, are living a life that is some combination of these two contradictory forms of wisdom. Our culture also, at any particular time in its history, is a manifestation of both wisdom from above and wisdom from below. What differs from time to time is the relative degree of influence that these two forms of wisdom have upon our culture. There have been times in the past when wisdom from above was the predominating influence in our culture. For several generations, there has been in our culture a gradual weakening of wisdom from above and a gradual strengthening of wisdom from below. What we have seen in recent years is a volcanic eruption of wisdom from below with a new consistency and capacity and range of influence. We have seen the flow of this destructive movement wreaking havoc and destruction in its wake. We hope and pray that this destructive force will not come our way, and we hope and pray that this destructive force will weaken before it destroys our culture.
According to the book of Proverbs, the beginning of true wisdom is the fear of God. The fear of God here refers not to abject terror but to a proper respect and regard for God based on a recognition of who God truly is and what God has actually done. Let’s consider who God is and what God has done. What is the original and ultimate reality? Does the original and ultimate reality consist of the dimensions of time and space? No, God created the dimensions of time and space as part of His work of creation. Does the original and ultimate reality consist of abstract qualities that God first possessed from eternity and then we began to possess at our creation? No, abstract qualities such as goodness, truth and beauty are not qualities that God possesses. They are abstractions of realities which God is. God is not merely good; God is goodness. God is not merely true; God is truth. God is not merely beautiful; God is beauty.
The original and ultimate reality is God Himself, and God alone. We know that God created the creation out of nothing, but sometimes we underestimate the radical emptiness of that original nothingness. The ultimate and original reality is not an impersonal background consisting of dimensions and qualities. God is the ultimate and original reality. That means that we live in a world that is thoroughly personal. Not everything created is a person, but everything created is God’s creation and God is a personal being. Creation is not an impersonal world where we are free to define and use things however we might want.
This personal God has no personal needs. He is not lonely. From eternity past, God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit have had a completely satisfying personal communion with each other in the oneness of God’s being. God did not create us because He was lonely and in need of companionship. God created the world and us as a completely free act of His divine will. He was under no necessity to do so, but God freely chose to do so. God created the world not to get more glory because God was already all glorious. God does not derive any glory from the creation but rather uses the creation to manifest His glory, to make His glory known.
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The relationship between Israel and the church in the New Testament is not always easy to discern, but it can be understood if we remember the differences between national Israel and true Israel in both the Old Testament and the New, and if we keep in mind what Paul teaches in Romans 11. 

One of the most common questions asked by students of the Bible concerns the relationship between Israel and the church. We read the Old Testament, and it is evident that most of it concerns the story of Israel. From Jacob to the exile, the people of God is Israel, and Israel is the people of God. Despite the constant sin of king and people leading to the judgment of exile, the prophets look beyond this judgment with hope to a time of restoration for Israel. When we turn to the New Testament, the same story continues, and Israel is still in the picture. Jesus is described as the one who will be given “the throne of his father David” and the one who “will reign over the house of Jacob [Israel] forever” (Luke 1:32–33). He is presented as the One the prophets foresaw.
The first to believe that Jesus is the promised Messiah are Israelites—Andrew, Peter, James, John. But in the Gospels, we also hear Jesus speak of building His church, and we see growing hostility between the leaders of Israel and Jesus. We hear Jesus speak of destroying the tenants of the vineyard and giving it to others (Luke 20:9–18). In the book of Acts, the spread of the gospel to the Samaritans and gentiles leads to even more conflict with the religious leaders of Israel. So, is Israel cast aside and replaced by this new entity known as the “church”?
There are those who would say yes, but the answer is not that simple, for we also run across hints that God is not finished with the nation of Israel. At the end of His declaration of woes on the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus says, “You will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’” (Matt. 23:39). In the Olivet Discourse, He speaks of Jerusalem being trampled underfoot “until the times of the gentiles are fulfilled” (Luke 21:24). In Acts, Peter says to a Jewish audience:
Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.Acts 3:19—21
Finally, Paul says things about Israel that seem to preclude total rejection. Speaking of Israel, he writes, “I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means!” (Rom. 11:1).
In order to understand the relationship between Israel and the church as described in the New Testament, we will need to look at the question in the context of the different answers Christians have given over the years. The traditional dispensationalist view maintains that God has not replaced Israel with the church but that God has two programs in history, one for the church and one for Israel. Traditional dispensationalism also maintains that the church consists only of believers saved between Pentecost and the rapture. The church as the body of Christ does not include Old Testament believers. Progressive dispensationalism has modified some of these views, but the traditional dispensationalist view remains very popular. Some covenant theologians have adopted a view that many dispensationalists describe as “replacement theology.” This is the idea that the church has completely replaced Israel. Jews may still be saved on an individual basis by coming to Christ, but the nation of Israel and the Jews as a people no longer have any part to play in redemptive history.
A careful study of the New Testament reveals that both of these interpretations of the relationship between Israel and the church are wanting. The relationship between the people of God in the Old Testament and the people of God in the New Testament is better described in terms of an organic development rather than either separation or replacement. During most of the Old Testament era, there were essentially three groups of people: the gentile nations, national Israel, and true Israel (the faithful remnant). Although the nation of Israel was often involved in idolatry, apostasy, and rebellion, God always kept for Himself a faithful remnant—those who trusted in Him and who would not bow the knee to Baal (1 Kings 19:18). This remnant, this true Israel, included men such as David, Joash, Isaiah, and Daniel, as well as women such as Sarah, Deborah, and Hannah. There were those who were circumcised in the flesh and a smaller number who had their hearts circumcised as well. So, even in the Old Testament, not all were Israel who were descended from Israel (Rom. 9:6).
At the time of Jesus’ birth, the faithful remnant (true Israel) included believers such as Simeon and Anna (Luke 2:25–38). During Jesus’ adult ministry, true Israel was most visible in those Jewish disciples who believed that Jesus was the Messiah. Those who rejected Jesus were not true Israel, regardless of their race. This included many of the scribes and Pharisees. Though they were physically Jews, they were not true Israel (Rom. 2:28–29). True Israel became def ined by union with the true Israelite—Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:16, 29).
On the day of Pentecost, the true Israel, Jewish believers in Jesus, was taken by the Holy Spirit and formed into the nucleus of the New Testament church (Acts 2). The Holy Spirit was poured out on the true Israel, and the same men and women who were part of this true Israel were now the true new covenant church. Soon after, gentiles began to become a part of this small group.
This is an extremely important point to grasp because it explains why there is so much confusion regarding the relationship between the church and Israel. The answer depends on whether we are talking about national Israel or true Israel. The church is distinct from national Israel, just as the true Israel in the Old Testament was distinct from national Israel even while being part of national Israel. The remnant group was part of the whole but could also be distinguished from the whole by its faith.
However, if we are talking about true Israel, there really is no distinction. The true Israel of the Old Testament became the nucleus of the true church on the day of Pentecost. Here the analogy of the olive tree that Paul uses in Romans 11 is instructive. The tree represents the covenant people of God—Israel. Paul compares unbelieving Israel to branches that have been broken off from the olive tree (Rom. 11:17a). Believing gentiles are compared to branches from a wild olive tree that have been grafted in to the cultivated olive tree (Rom. 11:17b–19). The important point to notice is that God does not cut the old tree down and plant a new one (replacement theology). Neither does God plant a second new tree alongside the old tree and then graft branches from the old tree into the new tree (traditional dispensationalism). Instead, the same tree exists across the divide between Old and New Testaments. That which remains after the dead branches are removed is the true Israel. Gentile believers are now grafted into this already existing old tree (true Israel/the true church). There is only one good olive tree, and the same olive tree exists across the covenantal divide.
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As retired pastors, we have years of experience and wisdom to share with others. Take inventory of what you’ve learned. Don’t think for one moment your ministry is over. Some of your best years have just begun. You’re in new territory with seasoned wisdom ready to be delivered to those coming behind you. 

Anyone who leaves a position he or she held for many years is bound to experience some nostalgia. Retired pastors can feel adrift with no measurable purpose, especially after years of being the person to whom so many looked for guidance and biblical truth. You may be longing for the place and significance you once had.
After having pastored for 47 years at the church my wife and I founded, I understand. I welcomed retirement, but it was also unknown.
What now? I wondered. Kay and I had moved from northern Virginia all the way to a suburb of Nashville. Would this new chapter be one of rest or work? The answer, it’s turned out, is both.
Here are four lessons I’ve learned as a retired pastor.
1. Retirement Gives the Gift of Time
Retired pastors need physical and emotional renewal. They need time to reflect, give thanks, and pray about what’s ahead.
But they also need time to enjoy their families. Perhaps you need time to serve your spouse. My wife, Kay, has sacrificed for me and our church over the years, and retirement has allowed us to enjoy one another in a different way than when life was back-to-back with ministry activities.
Surprisingly, Kay and I are doing more ministry together now in retirement than we were able to when I was pastoring full-time. If you have grown children or grandchildren, use this newly available time to invest in their lives as well. This is the season to put Deuteronomy 6:4–7 into action.
2. Retirement Is a Blessing, Not a Limitation
After you’ve rested and replenished, it’s time to think about what’s next. What surprised me is that getting back into the ministry saddle in a different capacity has been life-giving for me. That’s the stage I’m enjoying now at a church in Franklin, Tennessee.
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