I will show that human wisdom is foolish and even the most brilliant people lack understanding. Isaiah 29:14
The Wisdom of God
The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God. As the Scriptures say,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise
and discard the intelligence of the intelligent.”
So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish. Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe. It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom. So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense.
But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength.
Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God.
God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin. Therefore, as the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the Lord.” 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 (emphasis added)
Can you imagine sitting in the audience when Paul spoke? What an awesome message and presence he must’ve commanded and I say this based on how he can command it today with his written words. The Lord was most assuredly in him, working through him. I read this passage and sit stunned and amazed. Jesus said that we must become as little children, that should be all that we need to know to do as Jesus said we should. But Paul, saying the same thing, really brings it home. No matter how wise I am, in my eyes or my peers’ eyes, it is all foolishness to God. It is the same with any human being out there.
I have often said that it is hard for my husband to understand things the way that I do in scripture because of how bright and intelligent he is. The man could run circles around me intellectually. Yes, I say this with pride because I am proud of how intelligent he is. What would my husband say to this scripture? How would he react? I’m not sure.
Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom… So what does that mean to us? To me, trying to figure every little thing, every little meaning and all the nuances too of scripture, means that I will never truely know God. I must rely on faith and come to Him through faith, blindly stepping one foot in front of the other in the fear and trust of the Lord’s guidance. I can try to understand the scripture, but I must try to understand it through the Holy Spirit’s teaching, not my own understanding.
When someone asks me, ‘why do you do or believe such and such?’ Sometimes I don’t have an answer, only a knowing that it should be so. It isn’t my wisdom, my understanding, but a knowing and a following of the Spirit. This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength. Seeing billions of light years into outer space, humans have reached the last frontiers. Soon, we’ll be looking into the deepest oceans, each year we advance a little further. We’ve landed on Mars, scrutinized Saturn’s rings, learning about black holes, seen the beginnings of stars and the deaths of stars. We’ve studied human behavior, animal behavior, we know the basic components of life all the way down to things we can’t even see such as electrons and beyond.
All this knowledge, all these endeavors, our unsatiable thirst for understanding, is only foolishness to God. Now how does that make you feel? It makes me feel pretty small. All the crying, whinning and complaining that I’ve done about my life and my marriage seems pretty insignificant now looking at it from this perspective.
Last week, I wrote to you saying that I decided to follow my husbands lead in forgiving him. So, today, I want the world to know that once again, I am stating that I forgive him. Forgiveness is a process and I hope to ingrain it into my head by repitition and through a constant desire to be more like Christ. After reading the above passage, I know that compared to God, my understanding is miniscule, but I also know that if I follow the scriptures and forgive, I will receive God’s peace. I don’t have to understand how it works, I just have to believe it works.
I love my husband and I forgive my husband. Today is a new day and I don’t have to understand everything, I just have to believe in God and do what I know He has led me to believe is right. Then, He will do miracles. They will be miracles because I can’t make sense of His work with my limited human understanding.
May God provide the increase.
Another great post! You did good with the wisdom verses intelligence issue. It’s simple but we make it complicated. God said it, believe it and do it! We don’t have to understand all the details of why and how it works, what era it is for and what the end results will be before we can obey. It’s like faith. We step out by faith like Abraham did and God will provide! We obey and God will bring the blessing.
We forgive 70 x 7 and when we’ve reached that limit we keep on forgiving…
Bravo. Let’s here the wise try to argue against that!
Thanks Eldridge. You have given me an opportunity to re-read my post and become convicted once again of what I believe. I am ministered to by my posts whenever anyone reads a past post and makes a comment because I feel that I am re-directed by the Holy Spirit at a time when I need to hear my own words and advice the most.
Thank you!
Hello! Some friends and I have a different kind of blog…we have a conservative christian, liberal christian, atheist, and 2 other authors. We are looking to even out our author ratio…to many liberal not enough conservative views. May we link to your site? or would you be willing to add to our blog with one of your own pages?
http://tothewire.wordpress.com/
You can email us @ tothewires@yahoo.com