Getting Wisdom

In this first episode of Season 2, Myron and Martin reflect on the virtues of peacemaking and curiosity and discuss today's roadside attraction: a seminary in Wisconsin older than the state itself. They continue to study John Calvin and Thomas Aquinas, exploring how God reveals Himself through creation and truth.

"Those external accidents, which resemble things other than themselves, are said to be false with respect to those things; thus gall is falsely honey; and tin, false gold."
—Summa Theologica, Prima Pars, Q17

00:53 Opening Reflections: Blessed are the peacemakers
04:31 Curiosity
16:26 Roadside Attractions: Nashotah House
20:22 Rules of Civility: Six aims of conversation
30:27 Institutes (1.5.13-15)
38:54 Summa Theologica (Prima Pars, Q17)

In this final episode of Season 1, Myron and Martin discuss old methods of communication and the question of predestination. In our readings for this week, John Calvin critiques the folly of the wise in missing God’s handiwork, while Thomas Aquinas considers the nature of truth itself and its grounding in God.

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

— John 14:6

00:34 Opening Reflections: Fax machines, snail mail, and telephones
41:24  Rules of Civility: A prayer for the pursuit of God
53:44 Free will
1:00:00 Institutes (1.5.12)
1:10:30 Summa Theologica (Prima Pars, Q16)

Getting Wisdom will return in Season 2 with new rules of civility, roadside attractions, and reflections on the timeless wisdom of John Calvin and Thomas Aquinas.

In this episode, Myron and Martin reflect on divine providence and the many failings of human perception. John Calvin reminds us how blind we can be to God's glory, while Thomas Aquinas walks us through the nature of divine ideas.

"How few of us are there who, in lifting our eyes to the heavens, or looking abroad on the various regions of the earth, ever think of the Creator?"

—Institutes (1.5.11)

00:37 Opening Reflections: God's providence
15:37 Institutes (1.5.11)
26:08 Summa Theologica (Prima Pars, Q15)
33:13 Angels on the head of a pin

Myron and Martin discuss the modern church’s therapeutic tendencies in light of Ephesians 3, reflect on the devotional value of worship when we're not in the mood, and explore themes of divine justice and omniscience in Calvin and Aquinas.

"God knows contingent things not successively, as they are in their own being, as we do but simultaneously."

— Summa Theologica, Prima Pars, Q14

00:42 Opening Reflections: The therapeutic age
12:11 Roadside Attractions: The Old Absinthe House
23:18 Institutes (1.5.10)
30:04 Summa Theologica (Prima Pars, Q14)

From Rudyard Kipling to General Patton to John Calvin, this episode traces the virtues of fortitude and faith amid modern distractions.

"The knowledge of God which we are invited to cultivate is not that which, resting satisfied with empty speculation, only flutters in the brain, but a knowledge which will prove substantial and fruitful wherever it is duly perceived."

— Institutes (1.5.9)

00:24 If— by Rudyard Kipling

24:00 Maps

32:56 Roadside Attraction: General Patton Museum

40:53 Calvin's Institutes (1.5.9)

57:02 Aquinas's Summa Theologica (Prima Pars, Q13)

Myron and Martin reflect on New Orleans hotels, history, and street preaching. They have a conversation about Calvin’s view of divine providence—God’s care revealed through timely blessings—and Aquinas’s account of God’s perfect knowledge as the cause and comprehension of all things.

"God, in a wondrous manner, often brings sudden and unexpected succour to the miserable when almost on the brink of despair, whether in protecting them when they stray in deserts, and at length leading them back into the right path, or supplying them with food when famishing for want."

— Institutes, 1.5.8

00:33 New Orleans
26:35 Calvin's Institutes (1.5.8)
32:41 Aquinas's Summa Theologica (Prima Pars, Q14)

Myron and Martin explore Calvin’s reflections on God's blessings in hardship, examine Aquinas’s teaching on God’s name as “He Who Is,” and introduce the first of Myron’s thirty-one life principles: to be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear.

"He is the protector, and even the avenger of innocence, by shedding blessings on the good, helping their necessities, soothing and solacing their griefs, relieving their sufferings, and in all ways providing for their safety."

— Institutes (1.5.7)

00:27 Roadside Attractions: Old Faithful in Calistoga, California

08:27 Institutes (1.5.7)

20:20 Summa Theologica (Prima Pars, Q13)

Myron and Martin reflect on customs and civility, then turn to John Calvin and Thomas Aquinas for insights on how creation reveals God's power and how the human intellect is illumined to know Him.

"By this light the blessed are made 'deiform'—i.e. like to God, according to the saying: 'When He shall appear we shall be like to Him, and we shall see Him as He is' (1 John 3:2)."
— Summa Theologica, Prima Pars, Q12

00:38 Customs & civility
22:45 Calvin's Institutes (1.5.6)
29:30 Aquinas's Summa Theologica (Prima Pars, Q12)

Myron and Martin conclude their series on Christian living with a conversation about proclaiming the gospel in today’s cultural landscape. They also reflect on John Calvin’s argument for the soul’s divine origin and Thomas Aquinas’s teaching on the unity of God.

"Man bears about with him a stamp of immortality which can never be effaced."

— Institutes, 1.5.5

00:48 Opening Reflections: Proclamation

23:30 Roadside Attractions: Café Saugus

29:03 Calvin's Institutes (1.5.5)

37:13 Aquinas's Summa Theologica (Prima Pars, Q11)

Myron and Martin welcome guest Bill Welzien to share stories from nearly four decades of street preaching in the Florida Keys, his marathon swims around Key West, and reflections on gospel witness in an increasingly secular age.

03:13 Swimming in the Florida Keys
20:24 Street preaching in Mallory Square
26:00 Evangelism over time
37:31 Four major worldview questions
44:58 J. Sidlow Baxter
55:40 Closing question