“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.” (1 Corinthians 1:27 – 29)
“…so that He may nullify the things that are…”
It strikes me that we often attempt
to conform our churches and ministries and educational methods to the very
things that God is nullifying. We don’t want the “weak things” or the “base
things of the world” and we certainly don’t want “the despised”. We want to
conform ourselves and our activities to things that the world applauds – we want
to blunt the offense of the Cross of Christ and the Christ of the Cross. We
want to “boast” both before men and before God – and yet God is intent on
receiving all of the glory (see verse 31) and bringing to nothing all that we,
as “mere men”, boast in – so that Jesus Christ may be all in all.
Kierkegaard wrote, “Woe to him
who first thought of preaching Christianity without the possibility of offense…Woe
to the person who betrayed and broke the mystery of faith, distorted it into
public wisdom, because he took away the possibility of offense! Woe to the
person who could comprehend the possibility of atonement without detecting
anything of the possibility of offense…”
The Gospel destroys our pride and
our self-righteousness and lays bare our utter sinfulness and our hideous sin
nature so that we have nothing in ourselves to boast or glory in – Christ alone,
God alone, is worthy of praise and honor and glory and worship.
Paul writes that “Those who
desire to make a good showing in the flesh” do so in order that “they will not
be persecuted for the cross of Christ.” (Galatians 6:12).
Then why do we attempt to
overturn the very things that God has nullified? Why do we seek the approbation
of men? Of the worldly academy? Of the world’s passing fads and fancies and
trends? Rather than being a distinct people living in God’s wisdom, we attempt
to teach and speak a wisdom “of this age” (1 Cor. 2:6). When we do this we have
forgotten who Christ is, what the Cross is, who we are – and we show ourselves
to be a very foolish people. Far better to bear the reproach of Christ than to
enjoy the approbation of this wicked age for a season (Hebrews 11:26).
Can we say with Paul, “But may it
never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”
(Galatians 6:14).
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