PRAY: Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us to hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
READ: 1 Corinthians 1:18–25
MEDITATE:
For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe (v. 21).
What a wonderful verse to explore!
For in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom… It was God’s preordained, wise plan to hide himself from the wisdom of humankind. God is not at the top of a mental ladder that can be reached only by the wise and the sophisticated.
The gospel message is not something we “figure out.”
As members of a Roman colony on the Grecian peninsula, the Corinthians valued logical thought. We can imagine them in their tunics celebrating fine arguments and lofty reason as they speculated their way toward an understanding of the divine. Paul’s words must have been a rude awakening! The virtue they prized the most, wisdom, was the very virtue that God frustrated as a way to find him!
God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached… God’s good news isn’t a puzzle to be solved; it is a message with specific content, summarized in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us” (2 Cor 5:21).
…to save those who believe. God’s good news is a message to be believed. It isn’t reserved only for those who are smart, wise, or even particularly good!
These verses serve as a reminder that our life with Christ does not depend upon our wisdom (or any other virtue, for that matter!) but upon the grace of faith in what God has done for us in Christ.
Questions and Application:
- What does this passage say?
- What does this passage mean?
- How does it apply?
PRAY: Almighty God, who for our redemption gave your only-begotten Son to the death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection delivered us from the power of our enemy: Grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.