Destroyed Wisdom
1 Corinthians 1:18-19 KJV
(18) For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
(19) For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
There’s always a problem when a person or certain group of people insist on presenting themselves as the ‘ones with all the answers’, the ‘most brilliant people in the room’, or entitled to be in charge just based upon how much smarter and endowed with intellect they are. There may be an initial success based on the power of their presentation and the convincing assault on any opposing concepts, but when it comes to knowing God and discovering the reality of who we are and what life is really about there is no way around the cross. The simplicity and accessibility of God’s love expressed in what was done in Jesus will totally undermine and disrupt the most thought out philosophies.
A meeting had been arranged to discuss what should take place with regard to a little child’s custody. Both parents were adamant about their side with extensive reasoning and evidence to support what they ‘knew’ to be right for the child. The debates became long and oftentimes heated, filling up the morning and then continuing through the afternoon. Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, as things had become particularly heated with raised voices and harsh words, there was a soft sound that was at first inaudible, but then began to grow in persistence and volume. Slowly the debate began to subside as everyone began to look for the source of this disruptive sound. It was a small voice singing a children’s song that was familiar to some and completely new to others:
Jesus loves me, this I know
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong
They are weak, but
He is strong
Yes, Jesus loves me
Yes, Jesus loves me
Yes, Jesus loves me
The Bible tells me so
The object of the debate, overwhelmed by the endless verbiage and hurtful thoughts and accusations, had gone to a place she had discovered recently in her class at church. She had discovered there the simple truth of the Gospel that God loved her so much that He sent His Son, Jesus, to die on the cross so we could know forgiveness, joy and peace. The song had been learned along with her discovery and was now on her lips; taking her back to that same place of love she had felt when she had asked Jesus to be her Savior. All other voices fell silent as the child became passionate with her song’s expression. It was at first almost like a little performance, but when she failed to stop after the second time through, voice after voice began joining with her as she led the whole room in her song of love and reconciliation. Though the song was observed by some as just childish ‘foolishness’ and void of relevance to the case at hand, the child had come to understand something that for now had completely silenced the ‘learned’ and ‘mature’ voices of unresolved reasoning. A heart surrounded by love had dispelled the dissension.
Every deep and elevated thought conceived by man is rendered meaningless and insignificant apart from the simple truth of God’s love expressed on the cross. His love short circuits the longest and most thought-out debates with something that can only really be known and understood through identification with the One who demonstrated this love. For everyone else it’s just too simple and foolish.
Once freedom has been known, though, in this thought-surpassing understanding, you would think there would never again be a need or desire to depend once more upon failed human reasoning. And yet, daily and moment by moment we’re given an opportunity to either let the song of love or the debate of bondage prevail in our hearts. Whenever the accusing and destructive voices have risen to an overwhelming level, though, there is ever a refrain waiting to be sung that will silence those voices, bringing hope and vision once again.
