"Wisdom from Foolishness"

07 April 09
Tuesday of the Holy Week

Wisdom from Foolishness
1 Corinthians 1:18-31

Christ the Wisdom and Power of God
18.
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
19.
For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
20.
Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
21.
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.
22.
Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom,
23.
but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,
24.
but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
25.
For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.
26.
Brothers, 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.
27.
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.
28.
He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things--and the things that are not--to nullify the things that are,
29.
so that no one may boast before him.
30.
It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God--that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.
31.
Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."

About 200 years after Paul wrote these words, a pagan stood before a wall in Rome to draw some graffiti. He scratched the sentence, "Alexamenos worships his god," and illustrated it with a picture. On the left side of the picture was Alexamenos standing with his hand raised to hail his god. What he faced as he performed this act of worship could be seen on the right: a figure stretched out on a cross. But the most sriking thing abut the drawing was that the human figure stretched out on the cross had the head of a donkey!

With that blasphemous drawing, the graffiti artist showed what he thought of Christianity. You might as well worship a donkey! Unwittingly, he illustrated the truth Paul had expounded in this passage. The gospel of Christ crucified is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power and wisdom of God.

Paul makes it clear that the gospel is not a refinement of worldy wisdom. It is not the progression of religious instinct into a more advanced development. It could not be that, for the gospel originated from the mind of God, and it stands in utter contrast to all the best that the human spirit has achieved or deemed noble. The contrast is so vast that God's gospel wisdom is foolishness from a human perspective. Paul is not alone in perceiving that contrast. The ministry of Jesus dramatised that contrast, as depicted by the oppostion of the Pharisees and Sadducees, and underscored it with every drop of blood that fell from His wounded flesh. Jesus' opponents preferred killing Him to hearing His heavenly wisdom.

That puts us on our knees in gratitude for being favoured with the gospel and with faith to received it. Here we are, men and women who know that the gospel of Jesus Christ and nothing else is the wisdom of God - the One Thing Needful. More than that; we are men and women who have been called to serve as ministers of the gospel. Woe to us if the One Thing Needful does not receive its due from us!

(Dr Tan Tee Khoon,
General Secretary,
Fellowship of Evangelical Students)

Commitment:
I surrender my human wisdom in exchange for God's foolishness.

Prayer:
Lord, make me a fool for Christ so that I can be blessed with your divine wisdom to speak your oracles to the world. Help me, Lord, not to despise the cross for it was where your Son disarmed the principalities and powers, and reconciled me to you. Thank you for the cross. In Christ's name, Amen.