LOUISVILLE, Ky. (SBTS) — In the first-ever Boyce College chapel service preached in Spanish on March 9, pastor Jose Mendoza encouraged students to recognize their need for wisdom and work hard to obtain it.
“Wisdom requires a certain attitude,” said Mendoza, director of the Institute of Wisdom and Integrity and associate pastor of Iglesia Bautista Internacional in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. “For in the book of Proverbs, we have 31 chapters and of those 31 chapters, 10 are dedicated to a change in your attitude to show you why wisdom matters and why you should seek it.”
The sermon was translated by Ivan Mesa, a Cuban-American of Miami Beach, Florida, who is a Master of Theology student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary — Boyce is the seminary’s undergraduate school. Mesa, a member at Louisville’s Clifton Baptist Church, is also an editor for The Gospel Coalition.
Preaching from Proverbs 2:1-5, Mendoza, who is a Doctor of Missiology student at Southern, explained four attitudes people have toward wisdom and said “it takes time to develop and move from one to the next.”
Mendoza, who is originally from Peru, said “knowledge in Hebrew has more to do with distinguishing the value of things” and wisdom is discovering what God values and how he views the world.
With the progression of each stage, there is growth in a desire for wisdom, until one is actively searching out true wisdom, Mendoza said. People should not just collect information, but should be actively searching it out because “wisdom is a personal labor.”
“Wisdom here is not going to be given to you by a professor,” Mendoza said. “You are not going to get wisdom from a mere eloquent preacher or teacher. Wisdom is going to come when you search for it by God’s grace.”
“So what’s the result when we arrive at that place?” Mendoza continued. “The response is very clear in [Proverbs 2:5]: ‘Then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.’ Then therefore, that is the result of my search. This demonstrates that I have to put in my part, and work at it. So this signifies that it’s a hard job. I have to move my ear and my heart. I have to publicly make known that I have a need.”
Mendoza encouraged students to embrace this lifelong pursuit and understand the importance of searching for wisdom.
“Everyday [the world] gives us trash that passes off as wisdom, you need to have the correct attitude; this is of life and death; this is to glorify God or to reject him,” said Mendoza. “It is a hard job that requires all of life.”
Audio of the Boyce chapel message will soon be available online at boycecollege.com under “News & Resources.”