1 Corinthians 1:18-31
You can’t talk about sin without talking about pride. In a sense, pride is the original sin. Satan rebelled against God and tried to take his place. Genesis chapter three tells us that Satan succeeded in tempting Adam and Eve into disobeying God by claiming that if they ate the forbidden fruit, “they would be like God, knowing good and evil.” Pride is the thought that we know better than God, that we are better qualified at knowing good and evil than he is. We reject his word in favor of our own wisdom. In a way, sin is trying to cast God off the throne and put ourselves in his place. “I’ll make the rules for my life. I’ll decide for myself what is right and wrong, good and bad for me.”
This is the spirit of our age. We live in a time of moral relativism. Truth and goodness are relative to the individual. Right and wrong for me are not the same as right and wrong for you. “This is my truth.” It is what the Book of Judges describes by saying, “In those days, Israel had no king, and everyone did as he or she saw fit.” God was supposed to be their king, but by and large, they had rejected the lordship of God.
It’s not much different in our world today. If there is a phrase that makes me cringe, it’s when I hear people say, “I think God ______.” If you want to know God’s thoughts, open his word and read them. Behind this phrase is the assumption that what I think about God’s thoughts is more important than what God actually says. And many people say that, including people in the Church sometimes. My goal in my preaching and teaching is to be as “unoriginal” as possible. I want to teach what God reveals, not what I think God should say.
“God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never find him through human wisdom.” How many different concepts and ideas of God have human beings come up with over the years? Certainly hundreds, probably thousands. Maybe more. What makes one person’s thoughts about God better than another person’s thoughts? How do we know whose concept is right? Is anyone’s concept right?
If we’re going to know God, it’s going to be because he has revealed himself to us. Not because we have risen up and grasped him by our own thoughts and wisdom. And this is what Scripture tells us to be the case.
In the book of the prophet Isaiah, God declares, “As high as the heavens are above the earth, so my thoughts are higher than your thoughts.” Paul quotes here, again from Isaiah, this time chapter 29, saying that human wisdom will not last. And the prophet Jeremiah is quoted at the end of this passage. There God says, “Don’t let the wise boast in their wisdom, or the powerful boast in their power, or the rich boast in their riches. But those who wish to boast should boast in this alone: that they truly know me and understand that I am the Lord”
God chooses the “foolish things” of this world to shame those who think they are wise. Paul knew the gospel message was frequently rejected by those who thought themselves to be smarter, wiser, and more sophisticated than others.
Many in the Jewish community rejected the gospel because it conflicted with their preconceived ideas. They expected the Messiah to be a powerful figure who would do spectacular miracles. The poor carpenter, born to nobodies from Nowheresville did not fit the bill. They were looking for a king and conqueror.
Now, you might be thinking, “Didn’t Jesus do a lot of miracles?” Yes, but not the kind people were expecting. Jesus’ miracles were often pretty low key. Many times, they were only seen by his disciples. For example, Jesus walked on the water and calmed the wind and the waves. That’s pretty big. But the only people who saw it were his disciples. There was one man who claimed to be Messiah in the years before Jesus. To prove it, he drew a crowd of 30,000 people out to the Jordan River, claiming that at his command, the waters would stop flowing, just as in the days of Joshua. He didn’t do it, but that was the kind of thing people expected from Messiah.
And many of the Jews were hung up on the prophecy that said, “Anyone who is hung on a tree is cursed by God.” Jesus couldn’t be the Messiah if he was crucified on a cross. We know that Jesus bore the curse of sin and death to triumph over them. Still, many couldn’t get past the idea in their minds about who the Messiah was or what he would do.
Paul doesn’t talk about the Romans, since he’s addressing a Greek audience, primarily, but they were obsessed with power, prestige, and influence. The thought of worshipping a savior, a supposedly divine figure, who died a slave’s death on a cross was more than many of them could bear.
And the Greeks thought themselves to be the smartest and most sophisticated people in the world. The simplistic message of the gospel did not satisfy many of them. And they did not think of God in ways that were compatible with the gospel message. They thought of God as distant and unmoved by any kind of emotion. The thought of God loving people so much as to take on human flesh and suffer and die for us was inconceivable to many Greek minds.
And we see these attitudes reflected in what some people said about the Church. There was a Greek writer of the second century named Celsus who derided Christianity. He mocked the Church for being made up of “simple and uneducated persons.” No self-respecting person of culture and learning would join up with such as them, he said.
We should not expect our culture to embrace Jesus and the gospel either. Our society values wealth, fame, and acceptance. Jesus was poor, humble, and rejected by the world.
But God has always chosen the “weak and foolish things of this world to shame the wise.” Think about the heroes of faith we read about in Scripture. Abraham was a childless old man when God chose him. To be childless was a source of great shame in ancient Near East culture. Jacob was the younger brother. It was supposed to be the older brother that would receive all the blessings. Moses was an exiled criminal when God chose him. The book of Judges tells us about the prophetess Deborah, who was chosen by God to lead the nation. A woman leading the nation; that alone was scandalous in that world. She went to Barak, a military leader and told him what God wanted him to do. But he was afraid to do it alone and wanted her to go with him. God’s message was that because he did not trust God to deliver, the glory for the victory would go to a woman. And so it was Jael who got the glory for killing the king of their oppressors. And, of course, David, the greatest of the kings, was the youngest of seven brothers. God seems to take great delight in choosing the people and situations that make the least sense in the eyes of the world, because God is offended by pride.
Let’s be honest: Pride is a problem for us. We are all prone to it. I heard a story one time in a sociology class I took in college. They surveyed people and asked “Would you say you are above average or below average in terms of ______?” Intelligence, good looks, likability, personality, honesty, and so on. And you know what the results were? Almost everyone, almost 100% of people, said they were above average in EVERYTHING. We all like to think we’re better than other people.
God’s Word tells us that we should humble ourselves, following the example of Christ, who, though he was God, humbled himself and was obedient to God in all things, even to death on a cross. That’s Philippians 2. And later in Corinthians, we are warned that if we think we are standing firm, we should watch out, for we can fall just much as anyone else.
We can’t be saved by Jesus Christ unless we humble ourselves. We can’t acknowledge our sin and failings or our need for a Savior without humility. Jesus can’t save people who don’t acknowledge their need for a Savior!
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