“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)
The Basket Case Chronicles #7
“For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. 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” (1 Cor. 1:19-20)?
We should begin with the fact of the taunt, and then move on to the reasons for it. The reasons are given in the verses that follow, but the fact of it is something we too often want to skate around.
When Scripture says that there is a way that “seemeth right unto a man,” but “the end thereof is the way of death” (Prov. 14:12; Prov. 16:25), it is very easy for us to think that Scripture is talking about too much beer, or too many red convertibles with blondes in them. You know, worldly things. We rarely think of a full scholarship at some Ivy League graduate school, or a very well respected evangelical seminary.
But the world’s mainstream doesn’t think that lots of cocaine seems right. They do think about wisdom that way, and their scribes that way, and their debaters that way. We really ought to stop imitating the world in that egghead stuff. In the gospel, God takes the world by the back of the neck, and rubs our nose in our high philosophy, just like we were a puppy that had piddled on the carpet.
Note the verbs—will destroy, bring to nothing, and made foolish. Wonder what that means. Can’t make any sense of it.