6) Wisdom and the world

click the arrow to listen

This series is entitled ‘Wisdom’, yet ‘wise’ is not a term much used today. Instead, we are presented with people designated as ‘experts’ or ‘commentators’. There is also a new type of person called an ‘influencer'. In some cases, these people have academic backgrounds and are very knowledgeable in their field. However, many people now are self-made and have status due to the way they have cleverly used internet technology. But where are the people who would have been known as sages in times past? Is there any respect for acquired wisdom; or are we expected only to listen to “celebrity pundits”?

ordinary

It is as though people who may have wisdom as a gift or through experience are being replaced by people who can talk well, or communicate a viewpoint effectively, or by people with financial backing who can monopolise the presentation of their ideas. There is evidence that this is also happening in Christian church life. Well-educated or articulate people are funnelled into places of leadership rather than those who bear the fruits of wisdom acquired from their experiences in life of faith, trial and blessing. As we shall see, this is diverging from the principles underlying wisdom and leadership in the bible.

Paul had to make some powerful points about this in his care for the churches. That particular time in history had its sages who were very influential. He had to make the point that God was now communicating His wisdom and salvation through ordinary people who had been filled with the Holy Spirit. To the Corinthians he wrote:

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; 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. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)

This was a striking feature of the Christian revolution – the elevation of ordinary people whom God had chosen and who expressed the wisdom of God through the gospel. The Christian faith elevated slaves, women and the poor into equal importance with everyone else. This was a revolution in the European culture of the time.

shame

We do not appreciate this as much as we might because our history has been shaped by Christian culture. We have been taught as a society to respect the poor and needy; we accept that all people are made in the image of God; we have learned that arrogance and disrespect to others is wrong. The Countess of Huntingdon was a contemporary of George Whitefield and John Wesley. She was an educated aristocrat, but one who had a genuine Christian conversion. She built a Chapel and encouraged many of her high-society friends to become Christians. But she had a wonderful, self-effacing take on this passage from Corinthians. She wrote: “I thank God for the ‘m’ in 1 Corinthians 1, for without it the passage would have shut me out from salvation in Jesus; for it would then read ‘not any were of noble birth’ but it says, ‘not many’!”

The question we ask as we read this passage in Corinthians is: “How will the wise, influential, noble and strong people be shamed?” The answer is in the section before:

Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher 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 know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
(1 Corinthians 1:20-25)

The world’s influencers were shamed by means of the message of Christ crucified. There is a bitter irony here: crucifixion was considered the most shameful way that anyone could die. It was not a punishment which was meted out to Roman citizens. The Jews were horrified when the Christians preached about a Messiah who had been executed on a cross. They saw the Messiah as the all-conquering hero who would deliver people from oppression. The Greeks likewise could not imagine how a special messenger from God could possibly be allowed to have such a humiliating death.

irony

Those who preached this gospel were despised and indeed persecuted. Yet, it remains true, that unless all people, whatever their status or background, kneel humbly before the cross of Christ to be redeemed from sin, they are aliens outside of the people whom God has called. The cross is the only way that we can be saved. Human wisdom is insufficient; human education is not enough; human ideas fall short – faith in Christ crucified is the only way that we can be right with God.

This passage reveals the mysterious truth of God’s foolishness and weakness. It is a mystery because the Creator of the universe can be neither a fool nor weak. Paul was no doubt being ironic to suggest this. But is there more that we can understand? Well, 2 Corinthians says:

For to be sure, he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God’s power. Likewise, we are weak in him, yet by God’s power we will live with him (2 Corinthians 13:4)

The weakness of God here was in sending Jesus to live in a human body. It meant Jesus was tempted, he became tired, he was hungry: he identified with the experiences which make us human. Finally, he endured the ultimate human weakness of the death of the body.

When it comes to the foolishness of God, this is merely how the worldly wise will view the cross. But what they label foolishness is God’s means of redemption. Not only was the precious blood of Christ shed for us on the cross, but it is also the place where our self-life is to be nailed. The world lives for self-interest and sin; the cross is the end of both. God knew that this was the only successful way to deal with the human condition. But to the world it seems crazy; and all their ideas and schemes to create a perfect society are destined to fail for: ‘the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom’.

promise

But I also think of God’s foolishness as His willingness to submit the work of redemption to our free-will. If God had created us to be robotic beings who were programmed to praise and obey without question, then His creation would have lacked the greatest expression of His image which is love. If we have free-will, and free-will allows us to reject God, then rebellion against God could occur. This is what we understand did happen with the devil and his angels: they rebelled and were evicted from the Heavenly realms. But it also means that humans, who were created in God’s image, can in the same way reject His offer of love. This introduces foolishness in human terms because God appears not to be in total control. But it demonstrates the ultimate wisdom of God as it means that His Kingdom will be populated only by those who love and serve Him freely and willingly.

By this misunderstood combination of weakness and foolishness, God has triumphed over the wisdom of this world and has prepared a Kingdom for all who willingly love Him. It is only those people who walk with the Spirit who will be able to be part of this amazing promise from God. 1 Corinthians continues:

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 – 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. (1 Corinthians 2:9-11)

mind

The Holy Spirit cannot be received by human cleverness or wisdom. If we freely submit to the Lordship of Jesus, then God will freely give His Spirit. The Spirit is hidden from the world which views this all as foolishness; the Corinthians passage continues:

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 … for, ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.
(1 Corinthians 2:12-16)

The mind of Christ is the mind of wisdom. Words taught by the Spirit are wisdom. The spiritual realities of the Kingdom of God are wisdom. The spirit of the world dispenses human wisdom through its agents. They declare its human wisdom because it suits their own self-interests. They cannot receive the mind of Christ who came to serve and not to pursue His own interests.

The influencers of this age will never be able to understand the wisdom of God expressed in the cross of Jesus. This is because the cross is the end of self-interest. The wisdom of the world is always rooted in self because this is the way the world can capture people’s allegiance. Hence, the world crucified the Lord of Glory thinking to destroy His wisdom as it is written:

None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. (1 Corinthians 2:8)

They do not want to understand it! Once anyone acknowledges the wisdom in the cross, they would have to forego their own wisdom which supports their selfish worldview.

thinking

Earlier we read that God viewed the wisdom of this world as foolishness; God actively demonstrates this, as Paul wrote:

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: ‘He catches the wise in their craftiness’; (1 Corinthians 3:19)

He is quoting from the book of Job which enlarges on the quote in this way:

He catches the wise in their craftiness, and the schemes of the wily are swept away.
(Job 5:13)

The schemes and craftiness of the world are foolishness because they are only plans for this world and this life. Death will one day sweep away every personal plan. This may seem obvious, yet it does not stop the worldly wise from investing so much in their programmes.

But there is another way in which the world’s wisdom can be seen to be foolishness. This is because, as part of catching the wise in their craftiness, God gives them over to futile thinking as Romans says:

their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools (Romans 1:21-22)

When we have the mind of Christ, we will be able to see through the futile intellectual arguments of the worldly wise.

Let me conclude with this from Proverbs 1. Here, Wisdom is making an appeal to all of us:

Out in the open wisdom calls aloud, she raises her voice in the public square;
on top of the wall she cries out, at the city gate she makes her speech:
‘How long will you who are simple love your simple ways?
How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge?
Repent at my rebuke! Then I will pour out my thoughts to you,
I will make known to you my teachings.
But since you refuse to listen when I call
and no one pays attention when I stretch out my hand,
since you disregard all my advice and do not accept my rebuke,
I in turn will laugh when disaster strikes you;
I will mock when calamity overtakes you – when calamity overtakes you like a storm,
when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you.
‘Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me,
since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the Lord.
Since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke,
they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes.
For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them;
but whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm.’
(Proverbs 1:20-33)