Street Smarts

Street Smarts

In Matthew 10, Jesus briefed his disciples before they embarked on their inaugural mission. He told them where to go. He told them what to pack. And then he gave them a word of warning: "I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves."

Unfortunately, too many of us are dyslexic when it comes to this passage: we're shrewd as doves and innocent as snakes! I think innocent as doves speaks to our motivation for ministry. In God's economy, if you do the right thing for the wrong reason you don't get credit. And I'll be the first one to admit that it is virtually impossible to totally eliminate selfish ambition from the equation of our lives. We all have mixed motives. There will always be trace elements of pride and jealousy. But sanctification tips the motivational scales so that we do what we do to glorify God. And we've got to continually check our motives and make sure we're doing the right things for the right reasons. But that motivational purity must be coupled with street smarts. If we are going to fulfill our divine mission we have to be shrewd as snakes.

I certainly wouldn't trade my book smarts. My undergraduate and graduate education laid a foundation for what God has called me to do, but there is no education like actually planting a church. It is baptism by immersion. It is learning by doing. And that is how you develop street smarts.

I recently read a fascinating business school study. The study found that the book smart graduates of this particular business school were outperformed by their street smart competitors. And the primary conclusion of the study was this: The book smart business people were taught how to solve problems not recognize opportunities. According to Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence and Primal Leadership, IQ factors only account for between four to ten percent of career success. In other words, book smarts must be supplemented with street smarts if we're going to be successful in our callings. Being shrewd as snakes means outsmarting our enemy. And that is no easy task.

According to Genesis 3:1, "The serpent was the shrewdest of all the creatures the Lord God had made." What a fascinating juxtaposition. We've got to be shrewder than the shrewdest of all creatures--Satan himself. The word shrewd comes from the Greek root phren, as in phrenology, the study of the mind. I n this context, the word literally means a sensitive mind.

Let's go and get some street smarts!