Today in church we discussed 1 Corinthians 1:17 and the idea that while wisdom is a gift, trusting in the wisdom of man is folly. The eloquent wisdom of man is powerless, lifeless hot air, without the Gospel.

1 Corinthians 1:17 (ESV)

17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

I was struck by this lesson, particularly since today we prize self-reliance, self sufficiency and intellect, so much so that we deify man’s imperfect empiricism. We hold up a man made ruler and attempt to measure heaven. We ask how can God be real when our modern mind tells us suffering is bad and never justifiable, never acknowledging that if God is real, than of course His sovereignty, love, wisdom and power are above any considerations and calculations we may attempt.

“Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense his own already ... It is like a small child going to its father and saying, 'Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present.' It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction.”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Do we wonder whether God is real? If so we had better STOP coming to the question with presuppositions about how our reason can carry us to His veracity, it can’t.

If God is real than He is the source of all wisdom and power outside of whom is no good thing, and certainly any power of reason we have cannot compare to the source of all wisdom. A sunny summer breeze is never more bright than the surface of the source of sunbeams, the sun. Similarly a man’s knowledge and wisdom is never deeper than the depth of wisdom itself. To think otherwise is to be the boy who asks his dad for six pence to purchase a gift for one’s father and imagines the gift somehow sets the father further ahead...

We are intelligent beings but part of real intellectual strength is humility, an acknowledgement of that which is not known, and more importantly, what cannot be known by reason alone.

1 Corinthians 2:1-5 (ESV)

Proclaiming Christ Crucified

1 And I, when I came to you, brothers,[a] did not come proclaiming to you the testimony[b] of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men[c] but in the power of God.

Thanks guys for your time and attention I hope this post stirs something in you today. May you be blessed, and know the extent of your worth, and the depth of His love for you.