I've mentioned before my "soap" journal, which stands for scripture, observation, application, and prayer. I'm reading back over my old journal with new eyes, and transcribing them here, along with my thoughts on how things look different to me now.
4/26/07
s) The message about the cross doesn't make any sense to lost people. But for those of us who are being saved, it is God's power at work. As God says in the scriptures; I will destroy the wisdom of all who claim to be wise. I will confuse those who think they know so much. (1 Corn. 1:18-19)
o) (underlined part) What is this saying? We know we ARE saved, so how is the message "God's power at work?" I love this whole chapter though. God obviously doesn't want us stupid, but He wants us humble. We have no knowledge that does not come form Him. Mostly I think of scientists who discredit the glory of God.
a) I always need to look to God for direction and wisdom. It's foolish of me to think I can find my way myself. And when people are impressed with me, I need to glorify God. Not in that false humility way, but because I love God.
p) I love the humility you showed when you came to earth. Our culture does not get it, but I want it. Let it be the power at work in me.
I cringe a little when I read this now; at my thinking that because of my "correct beliefs," I was saved (from hell) and that scientists who did not believe the correct things were doomed. (Because of their arrogance...how ironic, right?) It seems to me that the wisdom that God is wanting to destroy is the wisdom of the religious leaders.
Where the wise? Where the scribe? Where a disputer of this age? Did not God make foolish the wisdom of this world? (vs 20)
When we read "wisdom of this world," what do we think? "The world" is non-Christians in most Christian's minds...so any wisdom that doesn't have the Christian label on it is "of the world". The Bible speaks of "the world" many times, and I think we make a mistake when we think each time it speaks of the same thing. But I just want to point out one scripture where Jesus speaks of "the world":
if the world hates you, know that it hated me before you...
they would not have been guilty of sin if I had not done among them the things that no one else ever did; as it is, they have seen what I did, and they hate both me and my Father.This, however, was bound to happen so that what is written in their Law may come true:They hated me for no reason at all.(John 15:22-25)
So, at least in this instance, I think it's obvious when Jesus says "the world," he is speaking of a religious mindset. (And you don't get to say "it was the Jewish religion that was bad" because Judaism was the "true" religion--there was no "Christian" religion) And when there is a wisdom that comes from the scribes that needs to be destroyed, I can't help but think it's the wisdom that takes scriptures and laws and rules and excludes and dehumanizes and condemns people to make "us" and "them". But when people look at humanity and feel disgust, I think God looks and sees something different. I love the next few verses following the ones in my soap journal, and I'll end with those:
God did choose the weak things of the world that He may put to shame the strong; and the base things of the world, and the things despised (like maybe homosexuals?) did God choose, and the things that are not, that He may make useless the things that are--that no flesh may glory before Him.
P.S. I forgot to add that I have no problem anymore with the idea of "being saved" - now that I see it as transformation instead of "I said the sinner's prayer, so I'm saved from God's wrath." There is A LOT of saving yet to be done in my life.
