Wisdom's Vindication

A would-be disciple came to Nasrudin's hut on the mountain-side.

Knowing that every action of such an enlightened one is significant, the seeker watched the teacher closely. "Why do you blow on your hands?"

"To warm myself in the cold."

Later, Nasrudin poured bowls of hot soup for himself and the newcomer, and blew on his own. "Why are you doing that, Master?"

"To cool the soup."

Unable to trust a man who uses the same process to arrive at two different results -- hot and cold -- the disciple departed.

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For John did not come eating or drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon!’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.


Spiritual truth cannot be received by natural minds. The natural man may see the same things and hear the same things as the spiritually alive, but he does not understand its significance. Logic and reason are useless. The blind cannot be argued into sight. The dead cannot be reasoned to life.

It is not surprising, then, that the flatlander finds fault with the ways and words of those who live in other dimensions. Seeing only in the horizontal he cannot comprehend the motivations or the true being of those inhabiting the vertical. It is rather like my cat watching the neighbor drive by with a stock trailer full of cattle. She recognizes the phenomenon. She’s tracking movement, calculating distance and size, but there’s just a whole lot going on that she can never understand.

It’s not that I have a persecution complex as a Christian, but non-believers tend to judge Christians pretty harshly. I have often thought that George W. Bush’s troubles began when he said that Christ had the greatest influence on him because He had changed his life. The left-wing, mostly godless faction in this country pounced on the statement as indicating that Bush was stupid. Atheists assume that they are smarter than theists. That someone would profess a real Christianity is indicative of moronically low intelligence. Never mind that Bush attended Yale and has an MBA, or that he was fighter pilot, the requirements for which probably include an above average intelligence. He is a Christian so any stick may be used to beat him.

“Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”

The older versions read more like:

“Yet wisdom is vindicated by her children.”

Jesus was challenging more than one group when He spoke. He was speaking to the godless, of which there were many in His day, to the activists who believed government was the answer, and to the religious who trusted in the institution of religion. Those who don’t believe in anything they can’t see have always been around. Today they would attribute the miracles of Christ to the power of suggestion. They might try to relate His love, compassion, and self-sacrifice to a mutated gene. I’m not sure how they dealt with it back then but they were just as skeptical and just as cynical. There were zealots even among the Disciples who wanted the Kingdom established through the restoration of Israel. They wanted a son of David to sit on a throne in Jerusalem and they looked to Jesus for that. They hated the Romans and wanted the gentile dogs expelled from their country. Then there were the traditionally religious who loved to look down their noses at sinners thinking they served God while hating their neighbors.

He called the skeptical to consider the changed lives that followed in His wake – the broken are made whole, the blind see, and the dead live. He called the subversives to consider the true nature of the Kingdom – it does not come with observation but it is within you. He called the superstitious to look beyond their dogmas – to see that God dwells not in buildings, that His ultimate temple is the human heart.

So, they crucified Him.

As He hung on the cross, they mocked Him. “If you are the Son of God, then come down from the cross now.”

He died in agony.

“Yet wisdom is vindicated by her children.”