Where is the Wise?

“Where is the wise? where is the scribe?

where is the disputer of this world?

hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?”

I Corinthians 1:20

The Christian faith has been under attack from its beginning. Much of the attack has been in the form of impressive sounding intellectual arguments. God exposes this worldly “wisdom” for what it is – just plain foolishness.

In my early Christian life, I chose to be honest about the fact that I had drunk deeply of the waters of “the wisdom of this world” in many ways. It became obvious that my thinking had to change foundationally if I were to follow Jesus Christ. I chose to apply the following verse to my life:

“Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.”

I Corinthians 3:18

I needed to “become a fool” in the sense that I had to admit that I was not wise and then be willing to practically “start from scratch” (learn like a little child does). The spiritual battle began! Part of me resisted strongly: it offended my pride, I feared the consequences of “swimming against the current”, and the idea of making major changes to my understanding was unsettling. But part of me (the “new man”) was thrilled with the idea and cherished every new opportunity to please God as I sought his will through the scriptures. The process was so different than what I had expected the Christian life to be! It was painful at times. I lost friends. I had to give up many things that my “old man” loved. I faced ridicule. It was not a smooth road. But I learned to love the things that God loved, I gained better friends along the way, and there was excitement and joy in following Christ step by step.

There are two main areas that are under attack by the “wisdom of this world”. They are: God’s written word and God’s creation.

God’s Written Word

This world (and Satan) have been in the business of attacking scripture for a very long time. Within the last hundred years or so, this attack has often been waged by introducing translations that are corrupt in many, many important places and claiming that they are “more accurate”, are the result of “superior scholarship”, or are based upon “new evidence”. Nothing could be further from the truth. God has exposed these lies. The modern English translations are founded upon the belief that a small group of original language manuscripts (which have been proven untrustworthy beyond doubt) should be the basis from which to translate. This is pure foolishness.

“Strange as it may appear, it is undeniably true, that the whole of the controversy [which manuscripts to translate from] may be reduced to the following narrow issue: Does the truth of the Text of Scripture dwell with the vast multitude of copies, uncial [copies made with uppercase characters] and cursive, [copies made in a “running hand”] concerning which nothing is more remarkable than the marvelous agreement which subsists between them? Or is it rather to be supposed that the truth abides exclusively with a very little handful of manuscripts, which at once differ from the great bulk of the witness, and---strange to say---also amongst themselves?”

John Burgon (1813-1888), “The Traditional Text”, page 16

God’s Creation

“Common sense refutes evolution at every turn. Consider, for example, the concept of evolution through random genetic mutations. Nothing in life works like this…...Take a machine such as the Space Shuttle. It has two million parts (and is far less complex than a bacterial cell). Random blind changes would never create such a machine nor improve an existing one. Complicated things are not built by random, accidental events. At the fundamental level, the evolution issue is not rocket science!”

David Cloud “An Unshakable Faith”, page 167

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“There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the LORD.”

Proverbs 21:30

“O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:”

I Timothy 6:20

“At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.”

Matthew 11:25

All Scripture quotations are from the Authorized (King James) Version