The food pyramid is a visual guide that helps us to see what kind of foods we should be eating and what to eat sparingly. We also use it to teach our children about healthy eating. The Wisdom Pyramid uses that idea and gives us a guide of where we can find wisdom. It teaches us about wise living.

Book Details:

Title: The Wisdom Pyramid: Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World

Author: Brent McCracken

Publisher: Crossway Books

Release Date: 9 February 2021

About The Wisdom Pyramid:

We’re facing an information overload.

With the quick tap of a finger we can access an endless stream of addictive information—sports scores, breaking news, political opinions, streaming TV, the latest Instagram posts, and much more. Accessing information has never been easier—but acquiring wisdom is increasingly difficult.

In an effort to help us consume a more balanced, healthy diet of information, Brett McCracken has created the “Wisdom Pyramid.” Inspired by the food pyramid model, the Wisdom Pyramid challenges us to increase our intake of enduring, trustworthy sources (like the Bible) while moderating our consumption of less reliable sources (like the Internet and social media). At a time when so much of our daily media diet is toxic and making us spiritually sick, The Wisdom Pyramid suggests that we become healthy and wise when we reorient our lives around God—the foundation of truth and the eternal source of wisdom.

The above information copied from the publisher’s website.

My Review of The Wisdom Pyramid

With the information above I decided I wanted to read the book. It also fits with the blog series, Wise Living. For that reason, I felt that I would include a review of the book on my website.

The book is divided into two parts. Part one is the Sources of Our Sickness which includes topics of information gluttony, perpetual novelty, and “look within” autonomy. Part two is Sources of Wisdom. This is where the author gives the wisdom pyramid.

“We need something similar to our habits of information intake. We need guidance for how to daily navigate the glut of information available to us, and ordering framework for navigating the noise and the mess of our cultural moment. We need a ‘Wisdom Pyramid’.”

The author gives three habits making us sick:

1. Eating Too Much
2. Eating Too Fast
3. Eating Only What Tastes Good to Me

It is easy to look at these and think about the physical food we eat but pause and think about that with information.

It doesn’t make much to look around and understand the sources of our sickness. we have a gluttony of information. Do you know many videos are uploaded to YouTube every day? There is a point that there is just too much information it causes anxiety and stress.

The other topics in Part One included perpetual novelty, and “look within” autonomy.

Part Two gives us the Wisdom Pyramid with the Bible as the base going all the way up to the internet and social media as the top. This section also discussed what happens when we get the top as the bottom. I found this section helpful as I could visualize the pyramid.

One of the sources of wisdom that the author gives is nature. He does an excellent review of various passages of scripture that show us how we can learn from nature. I was challenged to just learn to gain wisdom from nature.

My Thoughts about The Wisdom Pyramid

I thought this was an excellent book. That is one reason that I felt it deserved a review here. This book is an excellent resource for the topic of Wise Living. I felt the author presented the problems that we are facing today regarding information and that imparts wisdom. The use of the pyramid and comparing it to food was helpful to just understand the sources of wisdom.

Overall this was an easy book to read but filled with deep truths.

Thanks to Netgalley and Crossway for a copy of the book to review. The review is all my troughts and opinion.

Here are the posts regarding Wise Living:

Wise Living Introduction

Wise Living in Relationships

Wise Living with our Time

Wise Living with Money