The question of how to turn fools into sages may not be particularly interesting to those unable to discern the difference. To those, however, who understand what scripture is talking about when it uses such terms, the question is one of some urgency. For fools, to state the thing plainly, are odious, and their end is destruction if they will not turn from their ways. Christian leaders are called to turn themselves from all foolishness unto wisdom, and to turn all whom they lead from foolishness unto wisdom. (This is one of the functions of the prophetic office.)

To state this is still to be a very long way from knowing how to do it. It may be helpful initially to reflect on the character of those we regard as wise. Usually (though not always), they are older folk; and what strikes a thoughtful observer is that their lives bear the stamp of long seasoning. What is it about older men and women that is so deep, so rich, so full, so noble, so respectable? When they speak, what they say is worth hearing; and one has ever the sense that not all has been heard, that much more could be profitably said. Often it is what is not said that is most telling for those who have ears to hear. The words of such persons give light and perspective; they open new horizons of thought, new frontiers for consideration, far beyond the subject matter at hand. Here are thoughts well formed, full-bodied, like well-aged wine. Here are ideas that have been forged, tried, tempered, and refined; they are neither recent nor cavalier, neither silly nor superficial.

And these qualities, these features, can exist without a hint of fussiness or stuffiness. Most of us have met an older man or woman who is positively delightful, full of humor and fun, well up on the times and able to engage the present; but with a deep sense of what is past, and of its worth.

Contrast this with the pervasive foolishness of youth! The talk of the young (not always, but very often) is trite, shallow, and whimsical, precisely because this is the state of their ideas. A gang of youngsters can talk boisterously about nothing (substantively speaking) for hours on end; and it is astonishing how much they enjoy it. They are well informed about things of recent origin and ephemeral significance; beyond this, they are ignorant and unashamed.

But how does one impart the wisdom of the old to the young? A short and direct route to wisdom is, of course, suffering. Nothing seasons a soul like affliction. But there is no biblical call to seek and secure suffering; it tends to take care of itself. Is there another way by which wisdom may be imparted? To answer this question requires a closer look at the character of the wise.

Among wise souls (again, they are usually of the older generations) there exists a deep awareness of what we might call “something more” – something more than, something beyond the self, and what the self is presently doing. With this transcendent something, as it stands above and beyond the self and the moment, the lives of the wise are a kind of continual “conversation.” There is the ever-present consciousness, among the wise, of being “situated,” of being located in a context, in a place . . . of being rooted, we might say, in a story.

And here perhaps is the genius of true wisdom. If it is the blight of folly (too often characteristic of youth) to be entirely absorbed with the self, and more narrowly still, in the present moment of the self; it is wisdom’s genius to view the self (and especially the moment) as one very small and slightly significant part of a very large and grandly significant whole. For the wise man, every moment of the self stands “within” a larger moment that itself stands “within” a grander series of moments – what we call a “history.” To put this another way, for the wise man each self-moment is part of a community-moment, which in turn is part of a historical movement (or better, a number of historical movements); and only as such does the self-moment retain significance.

It is but a slight step from this to the idea that wisdom is inextricably grounded in narrative. The absence of a well-formed sense of narrative and a well-formed sense of identity in a community defined by a particular narrative, will usually explain the pervasive foolishness of youth. What is particularly frightening about this absence in the modern context is that modernity has, for many generations, self-consciously rebelled against the ancient narratives that once defined all human community. In bygone centuries, there existed religious narratives, or at least tribal and national narratives, which defined and shaped the human community, and in which young ones might be schooled. Now the religious narratives are simply “myths”; now the tribe is a “neighborhood” in which all are functionally strangers, and the nationhood of nations is rapidly washing away into the global sea. Now the best one can hope for is a “Facebook community” a year or two old, or perhaps a “readership community” built (the word is too strong) around the latest Twilight novel.

The Christian scriptures are violently subversive of our modern foolishness. To us they present the grandest of narratives: the story of the kingdom of God stretching back to Eden, the story of God’s covenant community stretching back through Abraham to the creation-kingdom, and past that to the inner life of the Triune Creator. The surest way for us to impart wisdom to the youth of Christendom is to brand this story upon their consciousness. The result of such inculcation is what Saint Paul called in his native tongue sophrosune – sobermindedness. The “sober” soul is aware; he has his wits about him; he is able to pull his head out of the present moment, to look about and orient himself to the larger community and story of which he is a part. He lives out of the wisdom and insight lavished upon God’s covenant people in Christ, a wisdom in which God has made known to us “the mystery of His will, according to His purpose which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph 1:8–10).

Regrettably, much of Christianity’s contemporary reading of its own scriptures has missed this narrative-dimension of the biblical wisdom. Christians read the Bible as a moral handbook, or a springboard to mystical experience, or a compendium of “timeless” propositions or truths. Even a cursory survey of scripture shows that it is, fundamentally, none of these things. It is the story of everything, and the Christian church is faithful to its scriptures only as it proclaims and lives this story.

Christian leaders, then, must understand the scriptures as they present themselves. They must, in view of the story presented in scripture, interpret the history of the world and come to understand their own identity, place, and calling (and that of those they are leading) within world history.

One immediate outgrowth of this will be a renewed interest in biblical community – doing “real things” with the real people of God, sharing life together face to face. The kingdom of God is not something virtual; and therefore the shared life of His people in His kingdom will not be virtual.

And in the context of this face-to-face community living, saturated with awareness of the biblical history of all things, young ones will quickly imbibe the wisdom of their fathers. They will see in the lives of those around them the glory, beauty, goodness, justice, and truth that are the organic fruit of the wisdom of God. They will learn the fear of the Lord through word and deed.

A handful of practical suggestions might here be offered:

1. Heads of Christian households need to recover the art of storytelling. We are to shape the imaginations of our families. We should be constantly reading or narrating to them all the wonderful stories of God’s kingdom-people since the beginning of time (including stories of contemporary heroes of the faith).

1. Heads of Christian households need to recover an aggressive hospitality. We are to shape the social lives of our families. Our sociality should reflect the fact that we are Christians, kingdom-people who delight in the saints precisely because they are “our people,” part of our story. As much as we can, we should work alongside the saints, play with the saints, eat and drink with the saints, read aloud with the saints, explore creation with the saints, sing and pray with the saints, laugh and weep with the saints. This should be especially true on our Sabbaths.

1. Heads of Christian households need to recover a sense of holy obligation in the arena of Christian education. We are to shape the minds of our families. If every thought must be taken captive to the obedience of Christ, then (even if we do not home educate) it falls to us to teach our children how to think about everything within the context of the narrative of God’s kingdom and God’s covenant. Geography should be the study of the movement of God’s kingdom throughout the earth; history should be the study of the movements of God’s kingdom through time; science and mathematics should be the study of the genius of God in His creation, and of the tools He has given us to build culture from the stuff of creation for His glory; athletics should be a tribute of praise to His image in humankind; art and music should be self-consciously devoted to reflection upon His glory; language and logic should be learned as tools for edifying His people and assaulting the strongholds of His enemies.

1. Heads of Christian households need to recover the centrality of worship. We are to shape the allegiance of our families. More will be said about this in the following essay.