Part of the problem with interpreting
the epistles is that it’s like we’re only hearing one side of the conversation.
If you were listening in on a phone conversation but could only hear one side,
you could figure out what the other person’s saying, but it takes a little
work.
The issue that Paul’s addressing
here is that the church in Corinth—allowing the surrounding culture to
influence them—put a high premium on “wisdom.” They’d listened for far too long
to charismatic charlatans who sounded really “deep” and spoke really eloquently
but who led them astray.
Greek and Roman society and culture valued
philosophers, people with greater than normal insight into the human experience
and metaphysical questions (like “What’s the greatest good in life?). Paul experienced
this personally when he went to present the Good News (or at least open the
door for it) at the Areopagus, where they all
“spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest
ideas.” Now, if you were here during our study of Proverbs, you know that not
only am I not against the study of philosophy, I believe that every Christian
should be, in the most literal sense, a philosopher (literally a “lover of
wisdom”).
But there’s all the difference in
the world between God’s wisdom and man’s. Mankind looks at a man hanging on a
cross—so badly beaten that he’s barely recognizable as human—as the epitome of
foolish. “If you want to win in this world, you need X,” and X might be any
number of things, like money, or sex appeal, or good PR, or strong military
might.
But God looks at his Son hanging on
a cross and says “My plan is working perfectly.” And guess what? I think I’ll
take the wisdom that fashioned the world and set the planets into perfect orbit
over anything that any man can come up with. “For the foolishness of God is
wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human
strength.” On God’s “worst” day, he’s still wiser and stronger than anyone on
their “best” day. It was this wisdom that effected our salvation. To the world,
a man hanging on a cross might elicit pity at best and scorn at worst, but to
us it’s the salvation of God, our salvation.
You see, he loves doing things in a
certain way so that only he gets the glory. He loves to choose unlikely
instruments in order to accomplish his plans. He takes an exiled prince who’s
herding sheep to lead his people out of Egypt and be the conduit of his Law. He
takes another shepherd, the “runt” of the family, and makes him king of the
nation.
And the Corinthian Christians could
testify that he continued this pattern with them. Sure, there might be a
prominent or wealthy citizen among them or two or three. But most of them—and history
matches this pattern—would have been drawn from the “dregs” of society. Our
Lord loves
to take nobodies, the has-been’s and never-was’s, pull them out of the bottom
of the pit, and turn them into his beloved heirs. Once again, we have a huge
gap in perspective: The world sees them as dregs, and he sees them as the
brightest jewels in his crown.
Why? Why does he choose to work this
way? The passage gives a simple enough answer: “God chose the weak things of the
world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the
despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so
that no one may boast before him.” If he chose the important people--the
VIP’s—all the time, then people might give credit to the human agents. But he prefers
to use people that no one else would
choose so that there’s no way that people can give credit to anyone but him.
Most likely you can testify to this
in your own life as well. One of the surest marks of increasing grace in a person’s
life is a clearer awareness of how unworthy you are of that grace. A less
mature—quite frankly, a more ignorant--believer has to fight off the
inclination that he’s doing a favor to Jesus by saying “yes” to him. A more mature believer
says
“I’m an unworthy servant; I’ve only done my duty.”
And of course there’s a wonderful
word here for the nobodies, the has-been’s and never-was’s: You’re
a prime candidate for him to use in a mighty way. You might say “But I
can’t speak well,” or “I don’t know enough about the Bible,” or “I’m so weak in
this area.” His response: “Perfect! That’s just who I’m looking for!”
Are you hearing him say this right
now? If not, you’re probably not listening.
Lord Jesus, the longer I walk with you, the more I see just how much you’re carrying me on this journey together. How boundless your grace, how matchless your mercy, and how surprising are your choices! Whatever you’re asking of me, the answer’s “yes.”
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