“This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic” (James 3:15).

True wisdom is from God; false wisdom is from the Devil.

Wisdom that is bitterly jealous and self-centered is not “from above.” Such traits constitute a wisdom that doesn’t come from God, the source of true wisdom (cf. 1:5, 17). Human wisdom, rather than being from above, is “earthly” (3:15). It is limited to the sphere of time and space and marked by the curse of man’s own fallenness, which is characterized by pride and self-centeredness. Everything the world initiates in the way of supposed truth is self-centered. Unregenerate man’s finite system demands an earthly wisdom and nothing more.

Man’s wisdom is also “natural” (v. 15), which means “fleshly” and refers to man’s humanness and frailty. First Corinthians 2:14 says, “A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God.” The natural man is sensual. All his feelings, impulses, and appetites are locked up in a fallen and corrupted system. All of man’s wisdom comes from his unsanctified heart and unredeemed spirit.

Besides being earthly and natural, human wisdom is “demonic” (James 3:15). This is the only place in the New Testament where the Greek word translated “demon” appears in its adjectival form. Human wisdom is actually generated by demons, who have been made captive to the same evil system as man. Satan and his agents disguise themselves as ministers of light when in fact they are ministers of darkness (2 Cor. 11:14-15).

The wisdom of the world is spawned by demons, reflects man’s humanness, and proceeds no further than the fallenness of mankind. Since that is so, be sure to “be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might” (Eph. 6:10). Don’t let Satan and the world beguile you with their so-called wisdom.

Suggestions for Prayer

Pray to be “filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord” (Col. 1:9-10).

For Further Study

According to 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 and Colossians 2:8, how is the believer to fight against Satan and his demonic wisdom?

From Strength for Today by John MacArthur Copyright © 1997. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.com.

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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Tropical Storm Rafael strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane on Tuesday as it swirled past the Cayman Islands and chugged toward western Cuba.  It was another stroke of bad news for Cuba, which has been struggling with blackouts while recovering from another hurricane two weeks ago that killed at least six people in the eastern part of the island.  The storm was located 20 miles (35 kilometers) southeast of Little Cayman in the Cayman Islands on Tuesday morning. It had maximum sustained winds of 75 miles per hour (120 kilometers per hour) and was moving northwest at 15 mph (24 kph), according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.    Forecasters warned that Rafael was expected to slam into Cuba on Wednesday after dumping rain on Jamaica and the Cayman Islands on Tuesday. The center warned of floods, storm surges and mudslides.  The U.S. State Department issued an advisory for Cuba on Tuesday afternoon, offering departure flights to non-essential staff and American citizens, and advising others to “reconsider travel to Cuba due to the potential impact of Tropical Storm Rafael.”  On Tuesday morning, the Cuban Civil Defense called on Cubans to prepare as soon as possible, because when the storm makes landfall “it’s important to stay where you are.” The day before, authorities said they had issued an evacuation order for 37,000 people in far eastern Cuba, in the province of Guantanamo, due to bad weather.  A hurricane warning was in effect Tuesday for the Cayman Islands and the Cuban provinces of Pinar del Rio, Artemisa, La Habana, Mayabeque, Matanzas and the Isle of Youth.    A tropical storm warning was in effect for the Cuban provinces of Villa Clara, Cienfuegos, Sancti Spiritus and Ciego de Avila, as well as the lower and middle Florida Keys from Key West to west of the Channel 5 Bridge, and Dry Tortugas. The warning was lifted in Jamaica after the storm passed by the western coast. A tropical storm watch was in effect for the Cuban provinces of Camaguey and Las Tunas.  Officials in the Cayman Islands closed schools and government offices as they urged residents to prepare. Long lines were reported at grocery stores as the storm approached.    Forecasters warned Rafael would unleash heavy rains across the western Caribbean that could lead to flooding and mudslides in parts of Cuba and the Cayman Islands.  Heavy rainfall also was expected to spread north into Florida and nearby areas of the southeast U.S. during the middle to late part of the week. The Hurricane Center predicted storm surges in Florida could reach 1 to 3 feet in Dry Tortugas and 1 to 2 feet in the Lower Florida Keys. A few tornadoes also were expected Wednesday over the Keys and southwestern Florida.    Rafael is the 17th named storm of the season.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted the 2024 hurricane season was likely to be well above average, with between 17 and 25 named storms. The forecast called for as many as 13 hurricanes and four major hurricanes.    An average Atlantic hurricane season produces 14 named storms, seven of them hurricanes and three major hurricanes. 

HAVANA — Rafael strengthened Wednesday into a powerful Category 3 hurricane ahead of its expected landfall in western Cuba, where it was forecast to bring "life-threatening" storm surges, winds and flash floods.  The storm, which knocked out power and dumped rain on the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, is expected to hit the Isle of Youth in the coming hours and make landfall later on Wednesday.  Classes and public transport were suspended on parts of the island as authorities issued an alarm for the incoming weather for the west of the country. Workers secured buildings and cleaned up garbage along Havana's coastline in preparation for floods. Authorities also canceled flights in certain areas like Havana and Varadero. Thousands of people in the west of the island were evacuated as a prevention measure.  "Preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion," warned the National Hurricane Center in Miami.  The storm was located about 65 kilometers (40 miles) east-southeast of the Isle of Youth and around 135 kilometers (84 miles) south-southeast of Havana. It had maximum sustained winds of 185 kph (115 mph) and was moving northwest at 22 kph (14 mph), according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.  Forecasters expected the storm to later weaken over Cuba, but emerge in the southeastern Gulf of Mexico as a hurricane.  Cubans have already been struggling with blackouts while recovering from another hurricane two weeks ago that killed at least six people in the eastern part of the island.  The U.S. State Department issued an advisory for Cuba on Tuesday afternoon, offering departure flights to non-essential staff and American citizens, and advising others to "reconsider travel to Cuba due to the potential impact of Tropical Storm Rafael."  On Tuesday morning, the Cuban Civil Defense called on Cubans to prepare as soon as possible, because when the storm makes landfall "it's important to stay where you are."  Silvia Perez, a 72-year-old retiree living in a coastal area of Havana, was among those scrambling to prepare. As other neighbors moved appliances and other furniture from ground floor homes, worried about floods, Perez stocked up on water and food.  "This is a night I don't want to sleep through, between the battering air and the trees," Perez said. "I'm scared for my friends and family."  A hurricane warning was in effect on Wednesday for a portion of the Cayman Islands and the Cuban provinces of Pinar del Rio, Artemisa, La Habana, Mayabeque, Matanzas and the Isle of Youth.  A tropical storm warning was in effect for the Cuban provinces of Villa Clara, Cienfuegos, Sancti Spiritus and Ciego de Avila, as well as the lower and middle Florida Keys from Key West to west of the Channel 5 Bridge, and Dry Tortugas.  The storm on Tuesday knocked out power in parts of Jamaica and unleashed flooding and landslides. The Jamaica Public Service, the island's electricity provider, said in a statement late Tuesday that impassable roads were preventing crews from restoring power in some areas.  Power outages were reported across the Cayman Islands after a direct hit late Tuesday, and schools remained closed on Wednesday.  "While conditions have improved on Grand Cayman, residents are advised to exercise extreme caution on the roads and near coastlines as rough seas and residual flooding risks may persist," the government said in a statement.  Heavy rainfall also was expected to spread north into Florida and nearby areas of the southeast U.S. during the middle to late part of the week. The Hurricane Center predicted storm surges in Florida could reach 1 to 3 feet in Dry Tortugas and 1 to 2 feet in the Lower Florida Keys. A few tornadoes also were expected Wednesday over the Keys and southwestern Florida.  Rafael is the 17th named storm of the season.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted the 2024 hurricane season was likely to be well above average, with between 17 and 25 named storms. The forecast called for as many as 13 hurricanes and four major hurricanes.  An average Atlantic hurricane season produces 14 named storms, seven of them hurricanes and three major hurricanes. 

BUENOS AIRES — Three people have been charged in connection with the death of Liam Payne, a former member of musical group One Direction who died after falling from the balcony of his hotel room in Buenos Aires last month, Argentine prosecutors said Thursday. Prosecutor Andrés Madrea charged the three suspects, whose identities were not revealed, with the crimes of "abandonment of a person followed by death" and "supplying and facilitating the use of narcotics," the prosecutor's office said. Madrea also requested their arrest to judge Laura Bruniard, who ruled the three cannot leave the country. Payne fell from his room's balcony on the third floor of his hotel in the upscale neighborhood of Palermo, in the Argentine capital. His autopsy said he died from multiple injuries and external bleeding. Prosecutors also said that Payne's toxicological exams showed that his body had "traces of alcohol, cocaine and a prescribed antidepressant" in the moments before his death. Investigators said hours after Payne's death that he was by himself when he fell. But the prosecutors' office said Thursday that one of the people charged was often with the singer during his time in Buenos Aires. The second is a hotel staffer who allegedly gave Payne cocaine during his stay between October 13 and 16. And the third is a drug dealer. The charges in Payne's case bear some resemblance to the U.S. cases stemming from the death of Friends star Matthew Perry a year ago. The actor's personal assistant and a longtime friend are among those charged with helping supply him with ketamine in the final months of his life, leading up to his overdose on the anesthetic. Three young men were similarly charged in the opioid-overdose death of rapper Mac Miller in 2018. Local authorities gathered, among other pieces of evidence, Payne's cellphone records, material for forensics and testimonies. They are yet to unlock the singer's personal computer – which is damaged – and other devices that were seized. Payne's autopsy showed his injuries were neither caused by self-harm nor by physical intervention of others. The document also said that he did not have the reflex of protecting himself in the fall, which suggests he might have been unconscious. Prosecutors in Argentina also ruled out the chances of Payne dying by suicide. One Direction was among the most successful boy bands of recent times. It announced an indefinite hiatus in 2016 and Payne — like his former bandmates Zayn Malik, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, and Louis Tomlinson — pursued a solo career. The singer had posted on his Snapchat account that he traveled to Argentina to attend Horan's concert in Buenos Aires on October 2. He shared videos of himself dancing with his girlfriend, American influencer Kate Cassidy, and singing along in the stands. Cassidy had left Argentina after the show, but Payne stayed behind. 

MEXICO CITY — Cassandra Garduño squinted in the sunlight, her pink boots smudged by dirt as she gazed out over her family's chinampa — one of the islands first built up by the Aztecs with fertile mud from the bottom of a lake that, later drained, would one day become Mexico City. Food from these islands has fed people for hundreds of years, but the chinampas are under threat from urbanization. The produce grown here doesn't fetch much money, and many families are abandoning the ancient practice to rent out or sell their land for more lucrative uses such as soccer fields. "People don't want to farm anymore," said Garduño. "They don't see it as a necessity, they don't want to produce, and people don't want to buy the products." Some of those remaining, like Garduño, are banding together to preserve and promote the traditional use of the chinampas. "None of this can exist without human hands, the hands of those who worked here and created the chinampa a thousand years ago," she said on a recent morning as the smell of celery growing nearby filled the air. The gardens crisscrossed by canals in the capital's southern Xochimilco borough are built up from layers of dredged soil, held together by tall, thin ahuejotes — a kind of willow tree — planted around their perimeter. Xochimilco has more than 2,500 acres of protected land owned by generations of local chinamperos, as those who farm the islands are known. Garduño's earliest memories of her family's chinampa came from peering through her grandparents' window at the plot of land and watching canoes weave in and out of the canals. Even then, she saw how the chinampas were deteriorating under pressure from urbanization and as some farmers began to drop the practice. When her grandfather died in 2010 and her uncles didn't want to carry on, Garduño took it upon herself to learn and conserve generations of farming. Her neighbors and relatives were skeptical at first, but she bought land for her own chinampa from a friend's uncle in 2020 and now grows an assortment of produce, including sunflowers, eggplant, and the Mexican marigold "cempasuchil." Now the 32-year-old Garduño is one of the growing collective called Chinampa Refuge, started by the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and she and other famers encourage chinamperos to preserve their land. They follow ancient growing techniques but are trying new commercial approaches to compete with cheaper produce grown on massive farms elsewhere in Mexico. That includes a special tag — Etiqueta Chinampera — that tells buyers the produce came from a chinampa, and may tout things like water quality or the chinampa's status as a biodiversity refuge. "Change comes with educating the new generations," said Garduño. "Talking about the origins and efforts to conserve and why it's important to do it." Luis Zambrano, an ecologist from the National Autonomous University of Mexico who has worked in Xochimilco for decades, said the fields are largely self-sustaining. Nourished by the lake, they can produce three to five crops of vegetables a year without the need of chemicals or irrigation, he said. Moreover, the ecosystem of Xochimilco benefits the sprawling city. Many different species of birds and fish thrive there, and the extensive canals help reduce the city's overall temperature, he said. But now, on weekends, it's common to see more soccer players boating to islands in their jerseys and cleats than farmers tending their crops. The soccer fields stretch for miles along the canals after what Zambrano called "a massive increase" over the past two to three years. In Xochimilco, many people are reluctant to talk about transforming their chinampas to soccer fields. One landowner who declined to be identified for fear of legal or community backlash said keeping the chinampas productive required more work and financial investment and yielded less revenue. Instead, she has established multiple businesses on her land — a soccer field for weekend games, a food stand and kayaking tours for foreign visitors. "If you do well (farming) you could earn $5,000 to $10,000 (100,000 to 200,000 pesos) a year," Garduño said. "In the tourist area you could have that within a couple of weekends." But converting the agricultural fields carries ecological impact. While traditional farming methods avoid insecticides and fertilizers, the soccer fields are another story. "It doesn't look that detrimental because there's no construction," said Zambrano. But "it's just as damaging because the amount of chemicals that are used, the amount of pollution that is generated is very, very large." The chinampas are among the significant features that led Mexico City's historic center and Xochimilco to be recognized as a world heritage site by UNESCO. But any protective measures are up to federal, state and local authorities. Carlos Vasquez, director of the Natural Protected Areas under Mexico City's Environmental Department, said they are working on proposals to address the soccer fields. "Many are counter to the conservation of the ecosystems," he said. "We're looking to regulate these activities." After a long day's work out in the sun, Garduño and some neighboring farmers congregate under Garduño's makeshift hut for a feast of chicken and tortillas. They catch up on their tasks and outline what's left to do. Juan Ávalos, 63, and his brother Salvador Gonzalez Ávalos, 55, have been working on chinampas all their lives. Their family has several plots in Xochimilco's San Gregorio neighborhood. A year ago, after some convincing by Garduño, the brothers joined Chinampa Refuge to adopt a more holistic approach to their farming. Salvador said the approach is a continuous reminder of his family's legacy in maintaining the ancient practices — something they want to pass on to their grandchildren. "That's something we need to work on as grandparents," he said. "That they integrate themselves with a taste for this earth." 

IQUIQUE, Chile — Over a thousand years ago, the hundreds of giant geoglyphs carved into the desert in northern Chile were a bustling scene. They marked sources of water in the vast arid landscape and were where locals came together to trade skins, animals and fish. Now the carvings are scarred with hundreds of tire tracks from motorcycles and off-road vehicles tearing through the art creations in the landscape and permanently disfiguring them. "It's practically destroyed by motorcycles, off-roaders," said Jose Barraza, general director of the regional national patrimony office. He said various groups were trying to preserve the site to prevent any more destruction - but also without restoring it to its former glory, to show the error of people's ways in the future. "[It] will be an example that shows future generations what not to do with our heritage, no matter how painful or how much anger, discomfort or resentment we feel towards it," he said. Local resident Angelo Araya says the community has been working with a local museum and authorities to try and "put an end to the destruction." The goal, Araya says, is to stop motorcycle and off-road vehicles from damaging the site further and "to make everyone aware that this is not just a heritage site, but that it belongs to all of us." The site has gone through many phases, going from a place to barter, to an abandoned site, to one where people were looking for gold. Eventually Chile's national forests association CONAF turned the area into part of the Pampa del Tamarugal National Reserve. Sand board instructor Franco Diaz said the government should physically close off access to the sites as the geoglyphs are difficult to spot. "If a jeep driver goes behind the hill, he won't notice if there's a geoglyph," Diaz said. "They should close the perimeter and protect these sites that are over 1,000 years old."

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The Federal Aviation Administration announced Tuesday that it will prohibit U.S. airlines from flying to Haiti for 30 days after gangs shot a Spirit Airlines flight. The United Nations also said it will suspend flights, "obviously limiting the flow of humanitarian aid and humanitarian personnel into the country."  The bullets hit the plane when it was about to land Monday in the country's capital, Port-au-Prince, injuring a flight attendant. It was part of a wave of violence that erupted in Haiti as the country swore in its new prime minister after a politically tumultuous process.  Life in much of Haiti's capital was frozen after the wave of violence, which came to a head when gangs shot the Spirit Airlines airplane Monday, forcing the airport to shut down. Photos and videos obtained by The Associated Press show bullet holes dotting the interior of a plane. A number of airlines suspended flights to Haiti through Thursday, but it was unclear how long closures could drag on.  Neither the former interim prime minister, Garry Conille, nor the newly inaugurated Alix Didier Fils-Aime commented on the violence.  But Luis Abinader, who as president of the neighboring Dominican Republic has cracked down on Haitian migration, called firing on the airplane terrorism.  "This was a terrorist act; the countries that are following and helping Haiti should declare these armed gangs as terrorist groups," Abinader said in a news conference.  On Tuesday, heavily armed police in armored cars outside the airport checked trucks used for public transportation passing by.  Schools were closed, as were banks and government offices. The streets, where just a day before gangs and police were locked in a fierce firefight, were eerily empty.  The sound of heavy gunfire was heard in the streets in the afternoon — a reminder that despite political maneuvering by Haiti's elites and a strong push by the international community to restore peace, the country's toxic slate of gangs kept its firm hold on much of the Caribbean nation.  The United Nations estimates that gangs control 85% of the capital. A U.N.-backed mission led by Kenyan police to quell gang violence struggles with a lack of funding and personnel, prompting calls for a U.N. peacekeeping mission.

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