As I feel a bit more confident in returning to my study on the kings of Israel and Judah, I feel a little bit more flexing is needed. The Spurgeon evening devotional for today’s key verse is 1 Corinthians 1:30. I decided to review some of my foolish actions and thoughts. I had thought that I could certainly convince someone to be saved with the evidence. I could sure have hope in getting the facts and figures. The late D. James Kennedy wrote the book titled Why I Believe. I only have the out-of-print edition and it’s falling apart. Yet, the book proved a blessing. It contained facts and figures so many that can prove creationism over evolutionism, and the validity of the Scriptures, and yet people still scoff at it. Ray Comfort of Living Waters has spent many years gathering empirical evidence for Christianity such as in his Evidence Bible. However, Comfort continues to suffer from so much unfair criticism.
The apostle Paul writes down in 1 Corinthians 1:18-19 about the cross. The word of the cross is really foolishness to those who are perishing. Paul quotes Isaiah 29:14. Back then, the Bible was just one huge scroll so he simply says, “For it is written.” It takes some extra diligence and some marginal notes to know it. Back then, I would put marginal notes on my KJV on the Tecarta. I simply switch from the ESV to the KJV (with concordance) when I need to look for my marginal notes. This was the prophecy of God that the wisdom of the wise men shall perish and the understanding of the discerning men shall be hidden. Isaiah 29 also talks about the problem in verses 11-13 about people who can’t read the book because it was either forbidden or the other man can’t read. I think it’s all about illiteracy or because the Scriptures must be spiritually discerned. It also talks about the lip service of the people where they honor God with their lips but their hearts are far from me. The fear of God is a commandment taught by men instead of God. As I’m getting ready for lessons on the Reformation, I’m convinced the Roman Catholic institution has been guilty of that as much as other pseudo-Christian groups!
Verses 20-21 start to address the questions. I really feel so guilty about the sin of intellectual pride. I’ve indulged myself in trying to convince people to get saved. I could know much about the Bible, facts, and figures but how is that going to be of any value? Where is the wise? Where is the debater of this age? Paul declares that worldly wisdom has been made foolish by God. That is when people seek to know anything but God. The wisdom of God is something that the world didn’t know. Instead, Paul pushes the truth that the world doesn’t know the wisdom of God, the world didn’t know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what Paul and his fellow missionaries preach, to save those who believe.
The Jew and the Gentile are baffled in different ways at the Gospel
I read the book Hard to Believe by Dr. John F. MacArthur. I could start quoting some segments which can be found in Chapter 2–The Hard Truth. I really look at the problem of both Jewish unbelievers and Gentile unbelievers. The message of the cross is a very hard-to-believe message. I heard the crucifixion story many times as a Catholic but still believed in salvation by works while finding myself delighting in sin. Here’s something to quote about the Jews and the Gentiles:
Verses 22 and 23 tell us the Jews were looking for a sign. “You’re the Messiah.” they said to Jesus, “So give us a sign.” They were expeting some great supernatural wonder that would identify and attract them to the promised Messiah. They wanted something flashy. Even though Jesus had given them miracle after miracle during His ministry, they wanted some sort of supermiracle they could all look and say, “That’s the sigh!” That’s the proof the proof that this is the Messiah at last!”
The Greeks, on the other hand, weren’t so much interested in the miraculous. They weren’t looking for a supernatural sign; they were looking for wisdom. They wanted to validate a true religion through some transcendental insight, some elevated idea, some esoteric knowledge, some sort of spiritual experience, maybe even an out-of-body experience or another imaginary emotional event.
The Greeks wanted wisdom, and the Jews wanted a sign. God gave them exactly the opposite. The Jews received a skandalon, a crucified Messiah–scandalous, blasphemous, bizarre, offensive, unbelievable. And for the Greeks who were looking for esoteric knowledge, something high and noble and lofty, all this nonsense about the eternal Creator God of the universe being crucified as idiotic.
I think about the religion of the world today. Some of these religions regard Jesus as an enlightened teacher. Having practiced both Taoist and Buddhist religious rites–it was a very common thing to attend Catholic masses on Sunday morning and then pray at both temples in the very same afternoon. I didn’t even know Buddhism was from India until I became a Christian! I did consider becoming a full-time Buddhist when I had my crisis of faith in Catholicism. I think about the Buddhist view of Jesus. Jesus is viewed as an enlightened man, a wise teacher, and a holy man. However, talking to a Buddhist about Jesus’ crucifixion for the sins of the world and the discussion can get heated. A Buddhist can insist that crucifixion never happened. I even heard of a book that insists that Jesus was never crucified but died a Buddhist monk. Islam even denies Jesus was ever crucified because the death was reserved for the worst of criminals. Instead, Islam teaches Judas Iscariot was the one who was crucified.
MacArthur’s statement about the crucified Christ is really idiotic to most world religions. Since every non-Jew is a Gentile, what applied to the Greeks here in search of worldly wisdom can be seen. One might be spending time reading religious literature from various religions. I tried reading some Buddhist and Taoist wisdom literature to examine them. The amount of demonic doctrine cleverly disguised that the unsaved can’t discern it is plenty. Both religions taught salvation by self. World religions teach performing good deeds gets one closer to salvation. Buddhism and Taoism are no different at all. I tried listening to Buddhist Dharma in part. Everything was related to simply trying to gain wisdom and self-preservation. There was really no such thing as grace in those non-Christian religious wisdom literature!
When God calls the weaker ones to do His job
Chapter 3 of Hard to Believe talks about what’s called “Truth in a Privy Pot”. I really must be disgusted to think about it that a privy pot. A privy pot is what’s used to defecate in it. I refuse to further elaborate. Unfortunately, that’s how the world views it. The world tends to value fame. There are many times that the world tends to romanticize academic achievement and belittle those they think have less. Reading through that chapter really shows that God has a purpose in choosing people who might be intellectually stupid to do his job. There’s a purpose that God allows people to have inferior intellect. Sometimes, it can be that God could use such people to baffle people who are smart in the worldly sense. The Greek word for foolishness is moros. It’s really no surprise that atheists, intellectual or not, tend to call Christians as morons.
There’s so much pride we think that God will save people for their own merit. Yet, the Gospel of Grace is what’s really taught. It’s a very hard Gospel to believe because world religions believe that they’re saved by their efforts. Again, it’s a matter of pride as salvation by grace crushes all boasting (Ephesians 2:8-9). Paul was a very intelligent worker. You can see how he was a scholar in Jewish laws and customs–a Pharisee. Yet, Paul soon saw all that meant nothing after his conversion (Philippians 3:7-14). Nicodemus in John 3 soon faced an incredibly humbling moment. We can also see some people of the lower class getting chosen. We have Jesus who called the tax collectors and prostitutes (who usually engaged in what they did out of desperation) to salvation. John 4 also records a woman who’s had a dirty marriage record getting saved. You can see this is a very confounding thing. The Pharisees were irritated to no end when Jesus reached out to the outcasts namely the tax collectors (who worked with Rome) and the prostitutes. Those two sinful professions were blatant marks saying “I’m unsaved.” Yet, God chose these people to do His job. Even so, people chose to judge them by their past profession even after they had repented.
What we see again is the absence of boasting. No one can brag of anything. It’s very often easy to say, “It was my preaching that got them saved!” Many times, preachers declare people saved and yet the person is a fake convert. Sometimes, people think in this view that people still have a limited free choice to believe in God. However, after studying Reformed Theology, I can’t give any thanks to myself if people who I gave Gospel tracts or read this site got saved. It’s the work of God and none of my wisdom. It really eliminates boasting because it’s all of God. That’s why Paul quotes Jeremiah 9:23-24 that all “boasting” must be in the LORD, not of self.
Reformed Baptist Christian Blogger 