So you think you're smart, huh? - Notes on 1. Corinthians 1:18-31

Verse 18-19:

For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, "I WILL DESTROY THE WISDOM OF THE WISE, AND THE CLEVERNESS OF THE CLEVER I WILL SET ASIDE."

This is where we left off last time. God's rejection of the wisdom of men. This wisdom is not what Paul preached in Corinth, and it is not the means God has ordained for salvation. Today we will learn why not. And if not wisdom, then what is the means that he has ordained for salvation?

Verse 20-21:

Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

Wisdom of the world

I think it would be helpful before we move any further to define what exactly we mean when we talk about the wisdom of the world.

When God created us in his image, one of the attributes he chose to let us inherit from him was the ability to reason. None of the animals have been given this gift, it is only for us. When there's a dispute about some fact, we are able to hear different arguments, consider any evidence presented to us, and from that draw a logical conclusion. This mechanism is built into our souls by our Creator, and it is not meant to be bypassed. It is unnatural for us to go anywhere else than the evidence takes us.

Many mistakingly think that Christian faith stands in opposition to this gift of reason. That faith is believing what you know isn't true, and the more evidence there is against what you believe in, the stronger your faith is. Many Christians even advocate such an idea of faith when, faced with hard questions, they offer answers like “I guess this is just on the level of faith”, or “It's just what I chose to believe”.

When they say that, they are saying “I'm under some compulsion that forces me to ignore the evidence and make an irrational conclusion”. While they might imagine it's a very spiritual answer it's obviously not a very satisfying one. An atheist, rejecting such a testimony would actually be right in doing so, because he is only using his God-given gift of reason to conclude that they themselves don't even believe what they believe. The Bible does not afford us cop-out answers like that. To the Contrary, 1Peter 3:15 says

“but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence;”

So if we are called to use the gift of reason in defense of our faith, we cannot possibly at the same time be asked to ignore reason to acquire this faith. Not to mention that this gift of reason is so central to everything we do that it is very hard to ignore. If you don't believe me, try surviving for one day without using logic and reasoning. It is in every way a completely unreasonable request. No matter how persuasive and winsome we may be, we should not expect to be taken seriously if we go around asking people to believe in God in a way that is contrary to the gift of reason that God has given them.

So if logic and reason is not the wisdom of the world, then what is?

Atheists seem to take great pride in the delusion of their own superior ability to reason, independently from what they see as the bondage of religious doctrine. They imagine themselves to be completely objective, since they do not work from a predefined set of unchangeable truths established by divine authority.

Of course they are delusional on several levels. Firstly by inconsistency, because the very laws of logic and reason are borrowed from the set of divinely authoritative truth that they take such pride in claiming to avoid. Secondly by presumption, because in establishing their freedom from divine truth, they must by necessity enslave themselves to the lie that there is no divine truth. They throw out a true presupposition, replace it with a false presupposition, and then pretend that there is no presupposition at all.

How do I know this?

Romans 1:18 to 25 teaches us that an objective mind, never having heard the Gospel, following the evidence to it's natural conclusion would not only know that there is a God, but would even know some of his attributes. And that anyone who comes to a different conclusion is in fact “suppressing the truth in unrighteousness”

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.

Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

And here, my friends, you see a picture of the wisdom of man. You start with our God-given gift of reason, exchange the truth of God for a lie, worship whatever you think most worthy of your devotion, and live life with no other moral compass than your own personal preference. God is out of the picture and you are at the center. There's no higher law than your own.

Here we have the sinner that we want to reach. Now let's look at our two options. We can either try wisdom, or we can try supernatural power.

I'd like to see you reason with the sinner, starting at their presupposition that there is no divine truth, and build on that until you end up at the conclusion that the Bible is divine truth. It is a logical impossibility. The only way I could imagine it being done is if you at some point got so entangled in the argument that you both forgot what was the original presupposition.

So that alone would explain why God has rejected that way of salvation, but more important in todays text is the pride aspect.

Verse 22-29

For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 

For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God.

God's pleasure in crushing human pride

We will not repeat to much of what we have gone through earlier on the subject of God's calling and it's effect on us, but what we will consider is the fact that God takes such pleasure in crushing human pride. Verse 21 said He is “well-pleased” to save those who believe through the foolishness of the message preached.

Foolishness here does not mean that it's illogical, or irrational. It just means that it's simple, and easily understood, even by common people. Those that the Greek debaters and philosophers would look down upon and call fools. I believe that when Paul is choosing to use the word foolishness, he is making a sarcastic reference to this prideful attitude in the Greek elite. In other places the Bible says the same thing using other words than foolishness.

For example in Matthew 11:25-26, after Jesus has preached, and His hearers have pridefully rejected Him and walked away, rather than being discouraged He is filled with praise to His Father, when He says:

“I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight.”

There it is again. “This was well-pleasing in Your sight”. Are you shocked that this is in the Bible? We just witnessed Jesus himself praising the Father because it literally pleased Him to hide the truth of the Gospel from certain people, effectively sealing their eternal destiny in Hell.

Are you shocked or outraged by that? That might be because you take the sin of pride much more lightly than God does.

If I asked you to write down for me on a note the five worst sins you could imagine, I could predict with some certainty what your notes would say. Murder, various sexual perversions, abuses, and so on. And I dare propose that the sin of pride would not make it to your list at all.

Yet all of those other sins are only mentioned briefly a handful of times in the Bible. But the sin of pride is treated in length, from every possible angle, again and again and again. It is so often repeated that we would tend to not take note of it anymore when we see it, like in this passage.

Pride is not merely a sin among other sins. It is the sin of sins. It is evil in its most basic and undiluted form. Every other sin on your note flows from it.

Pride was the sin that got Lucifer kicked out of Heaven:

How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You who have weakened the nations! But you said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;' (Is 14:12-14)

Likewise it was with pride Adam and Eve were tempted, and fell, casting the curse of sin over all of mankind:

The serpent said to the woman, "You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Gen 3:4-5)

And would you not have to agree that it is pride—yourself usurping God's role as law-giver, and deciding for yourself—that has been at the foundation every single time you yourself have fallen into some sin?

This then, is why God has taken pleasure in hiding the truth of the Gospel from the proud. A proud heart would do nothing else with the Gospel than twist it into an instrument of their own self-worship. So even if it had been logically possible to grasp the gospel by worldly wisdom, those who got it would take great pride in having conquered such a magnificent concept by the power of their own intellect.

God will not cooperate on such terms. He is the creator of everything, the infinite, all-powerful, all-knowing, self-existing supreme being, totally fulfilled and satisfied in himself. He alone is worthy of worship, and he is not an idolater. God does not bow down to anything lesser than himself. Least of all weak and insignificant men pridefully reaching for his crown.

So he made sure that no one would have any occasion to boast before him. He chose a simple way for simple people to be saved. Faith is the most basic intellectual mechanism there is. Even a child is able to practice it, and will do so gladly with everything they are told. You hear, and you believe. It's that simple.

And still, in our natural state we are all so proud that it takes a miracle of God to enable us to do it.

Verse 30-31

But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, "LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD."

By his doing:

This seems to be another thing we keep coming back to. Salvation by His doing, and not ours. Even such a simple thing as faith is out of our reach, and we can only receive it as a gift from God. This ensures that everyone who comes to him comes on their knees. Humble, offering noting on his own.

What do we say then when we are asked why, all of a sudden, we're so different? “I cleaned up my life”? “I pulled myself together and became a better person”? “I found Jesus, and he helped me take responsibility for my life”? All of those are out of the question. Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.

All we can do is point to Christ and say “He did it”.

Jake's Fortune book review

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say Ray Comfort is one of the most influential preachers today when it comes to personal evangelism. His message of law before grace is loved and hated all over the world. I count myself among those who love it. When I first heard him preach on Hell's best kept secret, and true and false conversion about a decade ago, it drastically changed my understanding of God, my understanding of man, and my view on evangelism.

In addition to his preaching ministry, his open air preaching, his training academy, and his TV-Show, he finds time to write more books than most people will ever hope to read. Jake's fortune is his first fictional work though. And if I tried describing it I wouldn't do it justice. Let me just say that Ray is Ray, and while it's a book about gunfights, betrayal, gold, love and much more the gospel is brilliantly woven into every story and subplot.

My wife and I have both been reading it this last week, and from the very first page we have hardly been able to put it down. It is most absolutely among my favorite books ever.

And if you are not familiar with Ray Comfort, then please, please, please click on the links above and listen to those two  sermons. You'll never regret it.

Invalid argument: The "potential person"

Someone told me that a fetus is not a person because it can't think, feel and be self-aware. It's merely a potential person until it possesses those qualities. Therefore it is not immoral to end it's life.

By that logic, if the same person tripped over his ego and knocked himself temporarily unconscious, he too would be unable to think, feel and be self-aware. Now he could potentially wake up again and regain his personhood, but until he does he's only a potential person, and therefore it is not immoral to kill him.

Paul's contextualization fail - Notes on 1. Corinthians 1:17-18

Verse 17

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void.

Cleverness of speech

Paul makes the transition from the previous topic of divisions to the power of the Gospel. Last time we spoke about Not picking apart the picture of God painted by all those who preach his name in truth. This time we will take a closer look at what appeal this picture has to us. What is the power that draws us to it?

The power of Paul's message was not in his cleverness of speech. That's certainly not because of any lack of intellectual ability on his part. When we read through Paul's writings that is abundantly clear. There's no doubt that the man is brilliant and quite able to preach the Gospel with cleverness of speech. So why didn't he? And out of all places he might decide not to speak cleverly, why did it have to be in Corinth?

You see, Corinthians—and Greeks in general—were people who had an appreciation for clever speech. Carefully crafted arguments and high-minded philosophy was highly esteemed in their culture. The elite members of society would devote most of their time to political and philosophical discourse. This is the culture that brought us such names as Plato and Aristotle, still famous today for their handling of what the Greeks called the “Logos” – The word.

We see a snapshot of this Greek culture in Acts 17, as Paul runs into some of these Greek philosophers in Athens, on his way to Corinth.

Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols. So he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and in the market place every day with those who happened to be present. And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, "What would this idle babbler wish to say?" Others, "He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,"--because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears; so we want to know what these things mean." (Now all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.) (Acts 17:16-21)

So why, out of all places, did Paul not preach with cleverness of speech here in Corinth? The city where cleverness of speech was alpha and omega?

What is the one thing everybody knows about evangelism? We need to put the message in a cultural context if we want the culture to listen. We need to make it appealing to them. If the culture you're trying to reach listens to a certain type of music, you need to make that kind of music with Christian lyrics. If the culture likes dance, you need to have Christian dance performances in church. If the culture likes to watch TV, you make Christian TV programs or start a Christian TV channel, and so on. So following this logic, if the culture likes cleverness of speech, than you need to preach the Gospel with cleverness of speech. If that current paradigm for gospel preaching is correct, than we're witnessing a monumental failure on Paul's part. How could he get something this simple wrong?

He gives us the reason: So that the cross of Christ would not be made void. You see, true faith is not something that you can be persuaded into. It is a gift given from God.

That's not to say that it's impossible to persuade someone to become a Christian by natural means. I'm sure Paul would have been able to convince many of the truthfulness of the Gospel if he had used cleverness of speech. Likewise, in our cultural context, multitudes make a profession of faith after Christian concerts, after watching Christian TV programs, and so on. So the problem isn't that it lacks the power to persuade. Rather the problem is that it indeed has this power.

You see if anyone is persuaded to come to Christ by any other power than God's calling, he will still go to hell when he dies. If he came because the preaching made sense to him or because he liked the music, and not because he has been born again by the power of God, then he may be religious, but he's still spiritually dead.
We can not afford to let the power of how we preach replace the power of what we preach.

If Paul had done that, he would be in danger of voiding the Gospel of it's power—the Gospel would have no life-changing effect on them—and producing many false converts, who would add dead weight to the church and eventually fall away. Potentially becoming very deadly weapons in Satan's hands as the persecution of the church was increasing.

Verse 18

For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

Are perishing … are being saved

Notice how Paul here uses the present tense of perishing and being saved. He did not say us who have been saved, or will be saved, although the Bible speaks of salvation both as a past and a future event in other places. Here he choses to speak about it as something present and ongoing. He sees two types of people: Those who are in the process of being saved and those who are in the process of perishing.

It's like a man who has fallen into a deep hole, and is in the process of being pulled out. He could say that he was saved when someone threw him a rope and started pulling him up. He could say that he is being saved, because after all he is still in the hole. And he could say that he will be saved once he reach the top of the hole and has solid ground under his feet again.

We need to be careful that we never think of our salvation as a past event that we're done with. It is a past event, but it's also an ongoing present event, and a future event. And we can never say that we got saved at a time in the past if we're not today holding on to the rope that is pulling us up.

This is all much clearer from Gods perspective. After all he sees our past, present and future all at the same time. He will never be confused by someone who seem for a time to be heading in the right direction, yet end up perishing, or someone who seems for a time to be on a highway to hell and ends up being saved.

To us humans, experiencing the world one moment at a time, can not speak definitively about who is perishing and who is being saved. We can only speak about what direction someone appear to be traveling in at those moments when we have observed them. Over time we can make qualified assumptions about which category they belong in, based on experience and our limited knowledge of God's plan. But only God has the full picture.

The power

Notice how this verse does not say the word of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but wisdom to us. It says wisdom later on, in verse 24, so it wouldn't by any means be wrong to say wisdom. But before this message will be wisdom, it is power. The word of the Cross is the Power of God. And this power opens our minds to the wisdom of God.

It might not be a completely impossible task to use natural wisdom to persuade someone of the truthfulness of the gospel, but it can never lead anyone to it's power. It is not the method that God has prescribed. To the contrary he says in the next verse:

For it is written, "I WILL DESTROY THE WISDOM OF THE WISE, AND THE CLEVERNESS OF THE CLEVER I WILL SET ASIDE." 

God has rejected the wisdom of the world as a means to salvation. He's given us a message that the world will generally find foolish. Yet combined with God's calling it becomes a power that bypasses our natural intellect and reveals a different kind of wisdom. We'll look more into that next time, which is why you need to come back.