◄ What Does 1 Corinthians 1:19 Mean? ►

It was Isaiah who first prophesied: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent," when he denounced the 'clever' men of the court who were encouraging the king of Judah to make an alliance with Egypt against Assyria, rather than trusting the Lord their God for protection.

And the same warning had to be reiterated by Paul to the carnal Christians at Corinth who, although having been saved by grace through faith in Christ, had not grown in their Christian life. These Corinthians believers had remained in spiritual infancy due to their internal squabbling, gross misconduct, and the petty disagreements over their own spirituality and their own 'importance' in the eyes of God.

Now, as then, the mingling of worldly 'wisdom' with the inerrant Word of God, or the interlacing of one's own 'intelligent' conclusions with God's revealed truth, is futile.

The transparent truth is that all man's attempts to merit God's approval are vain, and the accumulated wisdom and knowledge of all humanity pales into insignificance in comparison with the wisdom of God. The stark truth is discovered in the Cross of Christ, and the staggering fact is that the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is God's power to us who are being saved.

God does not need the wisdom of the world, nor is He impressed by human hypotheses. God laughs to scorn any intelligent analysis or pseudo-scientific premise that circumnavigates the Cross of Christ, or renders His crucifixion as an insignificant delusion, for "Christ is the power of God and Christ is the wisdom of God."  

Let us remember that "at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

Heavenly Father, thank You that in Your wisdom, You set at nought all man's self-proclaimed wisdom and self-confident merit by sending the Lord Jesus to die on the Cross and rise again the third day, proclaiming faith in Him alone to be the one and only Way to salvation. Keep me looking to Jesus and living humbly before You all the days of my life. In Jesus' name, AMEN.