Read­ing Time: 2 minutes

Introduction   

Today’s First and Second read­ings under­line two facts: ‘Decision (mak­ing)’ and ‘Wis­dom.’ On the oth­er hand, the Gos­pel is a prag­mat­ic expos­i­tion of our decisions and the applic­a­tion of wis­dom or lack of it in our actions and decisions. Since the 4^th Sunday, we have been read­ing and reflect­ing on one of the major Matthean dis­courses – the Evan­gel­ic­al dis­course, oth­er­wise known as the Ser­mon on the Mount, delivered on an unspe­cified moun­tain. This will con­tin­ue until the 9^th Sunday. Express­ing his first con­tact with the teach­ings of Jesus on the Mount, Mahatma Ghandi con­fessed said “The ser­mon on the Mount went straight to my heart.…” Yes! That is the effect the Ser­mon on the Mount and every mes­sage of the Gos­pel should have on who­ever hears it. It should pierce the heart. And pier­cing the heart means hear­ing the word and put­ting it into prac­tice (cf. Luke 11:27–28).

Unless your righteousness…

In Mat­thew 5:20, Jesus sternly warned the dis­ciples “unless your right­eous­ness exceeds that of the Scribes and Phar­isees, you will not enter the king­dom of heav­en.” Now, the ques­tion is how is or how was the right­eous­ness of the Scribes and the Phar­isees? On vari­ous occa­sions, Jesus con­fron­ted the Scribes and the Phar­isees and con­demned their exter­n­al­ism and advert­ised spir­itu­al­ity. Though they glor­ied in out­ward con­form­ity to bib­lic­al and extra-bib­lic­al reg­u­la­tions, yet, their hearts were impure and miles away from God (cf. Isa 29:13). They knew how to clean the out­side of the cup, for­get­ting that it is the same per­son that owns both the out­side and the inside (cf. Matt 23:5.23.25–28).

Conclusion

An able lead­er is sup­posed to be filled with admin­is­trat­ive ḥok­mâ (wis­dom). Solomon (though he derailed when he decided to please his wives) under­stood this. Hence, he asked God to grant him wis­dom to enable him do well as the King (God’s rep­res­ent­at­ive). Philo­sophy, Theo­logy, Sci­ence, Engin­eer­ing, and every oth­er study dis­as­so­ci­ated from wis­do­mo­logy (the art of acquir­ing divine guidance/wisdom) is like someone affected by par­tial stroke. Keep­ing or not keep­ing the com­mand­ment on love of neigh­bour is our choice. Obey­ing or dis­obey­ing the rules of life is strictly our choice. To be faith­ful or unfaith­ful is our decision. Fire or water? You are free to pick the one you prefer. Life or death? It is up to you to take one (cf. First Read­ing). Whichever choice you make, be ready as well to accept the con­sequence pos­it­ive or neg­at­ive. But remem­ber, you need wis­dom to know the dif­fer­ence. And you equally require wis­dom to avoid leg­al­ist­ic con­form­ity to soci­et­al rules and reg­u­la­tions. As the king of Reg­gae Music, Robert (Bob) Mar­ley, would put it in one of his tracks (Exodus); “Open your eyes, look with­in. Are you sat­is­fied with the life you are liv­ing?” To this I add: Open your inner eyes, look right inside you, are you sat­is­fied with the decisions you have made so far? Before you decide any­thing, do not ignore wis­dom for some actions once executed, can nev­er be undone no mat­ter how much the per­son regrets.

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPIES OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE:
SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vols. I‑II-III)!! The reflec­tion for the 6^th Sunday of the year is found in The Word of Life, vol. I, pages 98–110. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo
or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com
or simply send an SMS on 08116100926, and I will get back to you.

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