“Yet we do speak wisdom among
those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of
this age, who are passing away; but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the
hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory;…” 1Corinthians
2:6 – 7 (NASB)
Are we convinced that “God made
foolish the wisdom of the world,” (1Cor. 1:20)? Are we convinced that, “The
foolishness of God is wiser than men,” (1Cor. 1:25)?
Do we “see” that God is nullifying
“the things that are, so that no man may boast before God” (1 Cor. 1:28 – 29)? Are
we living in the realization that the rulers of this age are passing away?
“Do not love the world nor the
things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not
in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the
eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the
world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the
will of God lives forever.” 1John 2:15 – 17 (NASB).
Consider “the boastful pride of
life” in 1 John with the thrust of 1 Corinthians Chapters 1 – 4. The rulers of
this age are passing away, the “wisdom” of this age is passing away, indeed the
world system is passing away – but the one who does the will of God lives
forever.
Why then, do we succumb to the
pressure and temptation to exchange the epistemology of God in Christ with the
epistemology of an age that is passing away? Why do we think we can “know” the
things of God without the Spirit of God? Why do we write and teach and preach
as if a methodology, in and of itself, can lead us into an understanding of the
Scriptures and an encounter with the True and Living God?
Better yet, why do we conform our
institutions of learning to the “academy” of this age? Why do we pattern ourselves
after that (the academia of the world) which has a faulty and fallen
anthropology? Why do we seek credibility according to the standards of the
world…standards which not only are constantly changing, but which are often
bent on the destruction of the testimony of God in Christ?
Why are our commentaries and small
group and Sunday school curriculum patterned, all too often, after the wisdom
of this age, rather than that of the Kingdom of God?
I think we have made morons of
ourselves (I include myself). How else can we explain the phenomenon of men and women who have
been in “church” and Sunday school for years remaining infants in both their
general knowledge and understanding of God in Christ revealed in the Bible?
If we maintain the epistemology of
the age that is passing away we will remain captives on this “Silent Planet” – (a
term from C.S. Lewis). We will be a quiet and complaisant people on a Silent
Planet.
God has predestined a hidden
wisdom in a mystery “before the ages to our glory” and yet we insist on
remaining slaves to an epistemology of darkness and an anthropology of darkness.
Paul writes, “The natural (unspiritual/soulish) man does not accept the things
of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot
understand them because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Cor. 2:14) and
we say, “Yeah but…”
What good is all of our learning
if we are not seeing Jesus Christ? If we are not worshipping God in spirit and
in truth? We are forging our own chains, what’s worse, we are teaching others
the trade.
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