Of Wisdom and Foolishness

People mocked Christ while He was suffering for them on the cross:

The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.’ 

The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, ‘If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.’ (Luke 23: 35-36 NIV) *

Today, those immersed in the wisdom of the world sometimes consider the Christian message to be out of date, unrealistic, and irrational.  To some, it is even seen as a crutch for people who are too weak to cope with life’s challenges on their own.  Speaking through the Apostle Paul, the Holy Spirit refutes the scoffers:

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing (emphasis added), 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;

the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.’ (Isaiah 29:14)

 (1Corinthians 1:18-19 NIV) *

Paul described how he helped those who were chosen to become believers to set aside their doubts:

And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power,  so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power. We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written:

‘What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard,

and what no human mind has conceived —

the things God has prepared for those who love him’ — (Isaiah 64:4)

these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.  The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for,

‘Who has known the mind of the Lord

so as to instruct him?’ (Isaiah 40:13)

But we have the mind of Christ (emphasis added). (1Corinthians 2:1-16 NIV) *

And what is this message Paul was speaking of?

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! (Romans 5:1-10 NIV) *

Are you saved?  Repent and ask God to save you.  He will.

*  https://biblehub.com/