"Easy To Be Entreated"
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According to James 3:17, one of the signs that God's wisdom is at work in a person's heart is that he is "easy to be entreated." Such a person is approachable, reasonable, willing to listen, to be persuaded, and to yield. He is not stubborn, obstinate, controlling, or overbearing. The "wisdom that is from above" produces a mildness of disposition, a meekness of spirit, that characterizes true gentleness (3:13).

When someone has (or is being told by others that he really does have) an "it's-my-way-or-the-highway" attitude, that is a sign that another kind of wisdom is at work in his heart. This is the wisdom that "descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish (James 3:15). This ungodly wisdom may display knowledge, shrewdness, and tactical or logical skill in arguing its point. But according to James 3:16, it produces confusion or disorder, a state of instability and disturbance where nothing is as it should be. It opens the door to all kinds of evil, driving away peace and harmony.

Clearly, God's wisdom is preferable to devilish wisdom. Although much could be said about the wisdom of God, at the core it is "Christ crucified" (I Corinthians 1:22-24). Because mankind was dead in sin and a slave to it, God became man and was crucified in our place. Therefore, we no longer live for ourselves, but for Him who died and rose again on our behalf (II Corinthians 5:15). A wise man will remember what his sin cost God, and will continually think, "not my thoughts but Thy thoughts; not my will but Thy will; not "my way or the highway" but Thy way."

The meekness of wisdom is the way out from control, manipulation, and being wise in one's own eyes. When one is seeking to be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, then he will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord (Colossians 1:9-10). He will "show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom (James 3:13 NIV)." And that wisdom will first be "pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness [will be] sown in peace [by] them that make peace (James 3:17-18).

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