Not Many Wise

Wisdom of the World

We have some very smart people in the world – people who have discovered chemicals that make cleaning our houses easier; people who know how to make a delicious meal; people who build rocket ships to carry people and equipment off of this planet. These are all great things, but they pale in comparison to the wisdom of God.

Creation

God created the entire universe just by speaking the word. He invented math and physics. He created sound, music, light, beauty, and everything that we see, hear, feel, touch, and even imagine. When we invent something new, we are really just discovering what God has already created. He is the real Creator/Inventor.

Learning

If you want to be a good football player, find a football player who is at the top of his game and learn from him. If you want to learn about computers, find people who know more than you, then start asking questions. With anything you want to do, there are many ways to learn: searching the Internet, reading books, going to school, speaking with people, and just trying. One of the key things is that you want to learn from someone who actually knows more than you do. For example, don’t ask a five-year-old child to teach you calculus.

Putting On a Show

Some people like to believe that they know about a certain topic, even when they don’t. They might look like they “have it all together” when they really don’t. This is called pride, and it can keep us from actually learning and growing. Unless we realize that we don’t know something and we need help, we can never get the help that we need.

Foolish Things

When I want to know about a stove I just bought, I’m not going to ask the guy who just installed a fence for me. I’m going to ask the appliance salesperson or go to the company web site and download the instruction manual. I will find someone who actually knows this product.
God has given us His Bible, a compilation of 66 separate books, written by about 40 human authors, over a period of thousands of years. They were from various backgrounds – some educated, some not. They were sheepherders, kings, poor fishermen, Jewish priests, scribes, governors, and others. The one thing they had in common was that they knew God and had a calling from Him.
Don’t ever think that God can’t use you because you didn’t go to the right school or come from the right family. God prefers to use people that the world would not choose, so that He gets the glory, not us.

Power of God

If you were to go back in time 1,500 years ago and tell someone about airplanes and flying long distances at hundreds of miles an hour, you would seem foolish to them, but you know that it’s true, because you have experienced it yourself, or you know people who have. Until you have truly experienced God’s forgiveness of your sins, the whole idea of the Son of God taking our punishment and dying in our place, so we could live with Him forever sounds just too good to be true; it sounds like foolishness. However, “to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Cor. 1:18)

False Teachers

Why do so many people trust others who say they know about God and how the universe works, but they are really just guessing? There are whole schools dedicated to teaching people about the “mysteries of the universe”, but the “mysteries” that they claim to know are just guesses.
Don’t settle for “easy answers.” Don’t settle for something that seems plausible; keep searching for the truth.

Truth

If I want to know about God, I can talk with Him directly and I can read the instruction manual that He wrote – the Bible. I don’t have to go to the people who call themselves “experts”, but they don’t really know anything at all about God, much less know God personally.

God’s weakness is stronger than the strength of some so-called “experts.” God has made the message of Christ so simple that a child can understand it, yet so profound and sublime that scholars spend their whole lives trying to grasp all of the intricacies of what God has created.
If you question some people about what they believe, they either start laughing and mocking you, because you don’t agree with them, or they will get angry and start yelling at you. This is usually a sign that they are not fully convinced of their own beliefs. They don’t have evidence to support what they think they know.

Holy Spirit

After Jesus had been resurrected and went back to heaven, He sent His Holy Spirit to be with His followers. The Holy Spirit gave them power to be witnesses of Jesus, as well as to perform miracles and heal people, as God directed. One day, two of His disciples, Peter and John, were going to the temple to pray, and they saw a man who had been crippled since birth. He was sitting by the gate of the temple, where friends would carry him every day. He saw Peter and John, and he asked them for money. Peter gave him far more than just money.

Healing

This man had been crippled for his whole life. Everyone in the temple knew him, because they had seen him for years, begging for money.
Peter and John told the people that this was not because of them, but because of Jesus. They told the people about how Jesus came to save them from their sins, so they also could live with Him forever.
A group of religious people, the Sadducees, did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, so they got angry and threw Peter and John in prison. The next day, they had a trial for them. The high priest and other important priests (powerful religious and political people at the time) were there, accusing Peter and John of false teaching. Peter and John, filled with the Holy Spirit, were not intimidated by the people in power. God spoke through them powerfully and eloquently. The religious politicians knew something was different.

With Jesus

Truth can always stand on its own. Facts are facts. People can try to deny them (and many do), but the truth will always stand up to scrutiny. The well-educated, powerful, religious people could not possibly admit that these “uneducated and untrained men” had anything they could possibly teach them. They did, however, recognize that these men had been with Jesus. They could also see that something was very different. These men were not intimidated by them, the way that most people were.
If you have been with Jesus, and you have learned from Him, you can actually know more than some people who have studied their whole lives. Studying does not bring you closer to God; humbly spending time with Him does.

Where to Start

Truly foolish people are those who deny the existence of God, just because they say He can’t exist (or they don’t want Him to exist). If you have to solve a complex math problem, but you make a mistake at the very beginning, because you were too impatient to take the time to understand the question, it won’t matter how much effort you put into it, or how sincere you are; the answer will always be wrong.
Until we come to the point where we are willing to acknowledge that God is God, we can never reach the truth. Our conclusions will always be wrong, because our assumptions are wrong.

What Now?

Pride blinds people. It will keep us from seeing the truth. Until we are willing to humble ourselves, look foolish to the world, and submit to God’s will, we will never be able to see the truth.
Start today. If you are a Christian, keep going; hunger and thirst for God’s presence more and more. If not, we encourage to seek Christ and start your new life with Him today.
If you have questions about Jesus, or would like to know more, click here to find out how to be saved. Click here to contact us.

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