The Wisdom Pyramid: Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
What is the true source of wisdom?
Today’s world has more and more information readily available, but less and less wisdom. Many people seek to acquire wisdom from easily accessible sources such as social media and popular culture but are often misled. How should Christians acquire wisdom in today’s media-saturated culture?
Inspired by the concept of the food pyramid, Brett McCracken presents a biblical paradigm for wisdom in today’s distracted age, illustrating his argument through a “wisdom pyramid.” McCracken suggests a balanced, healthy diet of information from sources ranked in order of importance—the Bible, the church, nature, books, beauty, and lastly, the internet and social media. By focusing on lasting and reliable sources of wisdom, and by being more discerning about the information they consume, Christians will become wiser—not for their own glorification, but ultimately for God’s.
This is a Logos Reader Edition. Learn more.
- Presents three marks of wisdom
- Examines less reliable sources of information
- Explores how the church can offer the world a deeper source of information
Part 1: Sources of Our Sickness
- Information Gluttony
- Perpetual Novelty
- “Look Within” Autonomy
Part 2: Sources of Our Wisdom
- The Bible
- The Church
- Nature
- Books
- Beauty
- The Internet and Social Media
- What Wisdom Looks Like
Top Highlights
“Oxford Dictionaries declared ‘post-truth’ the international word of the year in 2016, defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.’” (Page 14)
“humans have struggled with contentment: we want more than what we have, and we want it now.” (Page 40)
“We can easily come to the point where we spend hours attending to headlines about things that will never affect us, debates about things we know little about, and problems we cannot solve. Meanwhile, as we are consumed by the ‘far away’ dramas of our social media spaces, we neglect the tangible realities of our immediate place—the local news, proximate debates, and immediate problems we could more meaningfully address.” (Page 32)
“Our overstimulated brains are becoming weaker, less critical, and more gullible at a time in history when we need them to be sharper than ever.” (Page 42)
“Feelings now overrule facts. We assert as facts what we feel to be true, and when someone challenges us, we turn it back on them, because how dare they question the validity of our feelings? To have one’s felt truth invalidated is to have one’s very identity dismissed.” (Page 55)
- Title: The Wisdom Pyramid: Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World
- Author: Brett McCracken
- Publisher: Crossway
- Print Publication Date: 2021
- Logos Release Date: 2021
- Pages: 188
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
- Subject: Christian life
- ISBNs: 9781433569593, 9781433569623, 9781433569609, 9781433569616, 1433569590, 1433569620, 1433569604, 1433569612
- Resource ID: LLS:WSDMPYRAMID
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T04:29:39Z
Brett McCracken, is a graduate of Wheaton College and UCLA. His day job is managing editor for Biola University's Biola magazine. He regularly writes movie reviews and features for Christianity Today, as well as contributing frequently to Relevant magazine. He comments on movies, media, and popular culture issues at his blog.