World's wisdom or God's foolishness - pick one

You are reading my open letter to Corinth, part: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]

Greetings to all of you at Corinth! I'm here with my friend Sosthenes, and I'm sending you this letter in response to Messiah's call on my life. Jesus the Messiah sent me to you, Messiah's followers who have been cleaned up and set apart for God, you folks who call on God's name everywhere you go. Grace and shalom to you from our Father and our common master, the Messiah!

I'm constantly thanking God for the grace he gave to you folks in Corinth, the grace given in the form of the Messiah, Jesus. From what we hear and know about you, God made your lives deeper and richer. From this, we know Messiah is in you. I see all God's gifts evident in you as you wait for Messiah to be revealed once again. This same Messiah will see you through to the end. I'm entirely convinced that when the Day of the Lord comes, you'll be seen spotless and blameless because of God's faithfulness in Messiah Jesus.

Stop fighting amongst yourselves!

I have a serious matter to bring up, however, and I want to call you to action on one thing, my brothers and friends: unity. I've heard some disturbing reports from my friend Chloe that some of you folks have divided yourself into camps: a group that follows my teachings, another group that follows Peter, one that follows Apollos, and finally another that follows only Messiah's teachings.

Don't do that. Listen, Messiah wasn't split between me, Peter, and Apollos. I wasn't crucified for you. You weren't baptized in my name, were you?

After hearing about this nonsense going on, thank God I didn't baptize you all! As far as I can remember, I only baptized Crispus, Gaius, and Stephanas's family. So at least no one can go around saying, "I was baptized into Paul."

God didn't send me to immerse you in water or make a following for myself. He sent me to speak with plain boldness the Good News of Messiah, so that the death of the sacrifice lamb, the Messiah himself, wouldn't be rendered pointless. This powerful, central act God did for us should be the focus.

God has picked the foolish things of this world

That statement about his sacrificial death is foolishness and silliness to the folks dying of ignorance or unbelief, those folks hellbent on doing it their own way. But to us, that statement makes perfect sense; it's the most powerful work God's ever done on our behalf.

You know the world thinks lowly of us. We're the dumb ones, the unintelligent ones who believe foolish rubbish, they'll tell you. It's ironic that this is exactly what God planned - remember when he spoke hundreds of years ago to Israel,

I'll destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the intelligence of the intelligent I will bring to nothing.

God has indeed chosen the foolish things of this world in order to confound and confuse those who think so highly of themselves. It's no wonder it's always the lowly and the broken-hearted folks who turn to God! Rarely do we see those who think themselves intelligent and higher than others turn to God. No, only after God breaks something in the core of their being and brings them to a humble place do we ever see them turn back to God.

In this masterful plan, God's made the wisdom and intelligence of the world into true foolishness, and folded man's supposed foolishness into his plan.

In this so-called enlightened day and age, is there really wisdom? Where is it? Is there really anyone truly intelligent? I considered myself such a man once, having studied under the great Rabbi Gamaliel and learned man's latest doctrines; an intellectual by all means.

Yet God exposed man's intelligence -- even my own! -- as pretentious nonsense. The world in all its wisdom and knowledge remains clueless when it comes to knowing God. God's delighted in choosing what the world considers foolish -- preaching, of all things! -- in order that the high and mighty be laid low, and the low and humble be made righteous and upstanding before God. Thus, the world does not understand God.

As I write this, religious Jews ask for miracles, whereas you gentiles look for understanding and logic. So, when we preach Messiah's sacrificial death, it's a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks! But we preach the power of God through Messiah to both Jews and gentiles anyways, because God's "foolishness" is wiser the world's wisdom and intelligence. God's "weakness" is greater than the world's strength.

I look at you and I don't see many of the "best and brightest", not many influential, not many high-society families. Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women the culture overlooks and discards, exploits and abuses? God picked such "nobodies" to expose the hollow pretensions of the "somebodies". He picks the ones who are broken, suffering, lowly, humble. In doing this, God shatters the self-importance of the pompous "high and mighty" folks. The first will be last, and the last will be first.

The world will call you weak, unintelligent, and foolish for following God. Don't worry about them. God's picked the foolish things in order to put the world's wisdom to shame. The things the world hates and despises and has contempt for -- these are the things God chooses, as if to laugh in the face of those who think themselves so great.

If there are any who are great, let them be great not for the world, but great for God.

Living the right way

You are reading my open letter to Rome, part: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][[10][[11]][12][13][14][15][16]

My friends, all I want for Israel is salvation through Messiah, nothing less. Yes, they already love God. But they miss what makes people acceptable to God--it isn't the Law alone! There's nothing we can do to make ourselves acceptable to God; only God can set us right with him. This setting-things-right is already in place! He's done it through the one who makes the Law complete, Jesus the Messiah! We get in the acceptable state before God not solely by following the Law and doing good works; no, there's only so much we can do. At some point, God has to take over. And he has! This faith, this trust in Messiah, is what sets us right before God.

The Law gets us only so far in this right way of living!

The Law got us ready for the Messiah, who then gave life to those who trust him to set us right before God. Moses writes that the Law gives life too; anyone following the Law lives. By the same standard, anyone who breaks the Law, then, dies. The Law gives life, it's true. Ah, but there is a catch: we know that no person can keep the Law perfectly! That means the Law can only get us so far. On the other hand, trusting God to shape the right living in us is a different story--no precarious climb up to heaven to recruit the Messiah, no dangerous descent into the grave to rescue the Messiah. This right way of living was predicted:

The word that saves is right here,

as near as the tongue in your mouth,

as close as the heart in your chest.

It's this trusting God to set a right way of living we are telling everyone about. This is the core of what we're saying!

How can someone get this right way of living?

Our part in getting this right way of living is simple: we just initiate it with a willing heart. If you just believe in your heart that this Messiah I speak of is the Master, you are saved from what's coming to you under the Law. That's it; you're saved from the end result of sin; you're saved from death! Just like it had been predicted all along.

It doesn't matter if you're a Jew or a non-Jew, or if you've got an extensive religious background or you've never said a single prayer before: we know that anyone who trusts God with his heart will not regret it. God's the same incredibly generous and forgiving God--no matter your background--helping anyone who calls out for help.

Tell people about it!

That is why we need to get the message out; without it, how can people call out for help when they don't know who will help them? Who can they trust if they don't know the trustworthy Messiah? How can they hear if no one shouts it aloud? How can it be shouted without someone there to shout it?! That's why Scripture says,

A sight to take your breath away!

Grand processions of people

telling all the good things of God!

It's true, many people aren't ready for this. They aren't ready to see it, hear it, or act on it. Some people have hard hearts; their narrow minds are already made up, they are like Pharaoh in Egypt, where no matter what God did, he kept shutting out the truth even to his own downfall. When we encounter people like this, it's easy to ask that inevitable question that Isaiah had to ask,

Does anyone care, God?

Is anyone listening and believing a word of it?

Before there can ever be a trusting in God and a right way of living, there has to be an ear to hear and an open heart. But unless we're the ones telling of Messiah, those ears will have nothing to listen to.

How can it be that Israel missed Messiah?

You might be wondering, "What about Israel? Weren't they listening? Didn't they have ears to hear the truth? Why didn't they see this Messiah you're talking about?" Yes, it's true, they were listening:

Preachers' voices have gone around the world,

Their message to earth's seven seas.

We also know Israel's punishment was coming. Moses himself said it:

I'll make you envious by those who aren't a nation

I'll make you angry by a nation that has no understanding.

God gave the same word to Isaiah, hinting at what was coming:

People found and welcomed me

who never so much as looked for me.

And I found and welcomed people

who had never even asked about me.

So why did Israel, who were looking and listening for the Messiah, miss him? God gives us the answer:

All day long I have spread out My hands to a rebellious people

Doing whatever they please, never listening to My heart.

What a sad and terrible thing to miss out on the Messiah! If that weren't tragic enough, they were looking for him all along! It's sad, but what choice did they leave to God, except correction by punishment? Fortunately, this punishment is only temporary.