Are You Wisely Foolish Or Foolishly Wise?

Therefore, if Paul was going to bring a person to the point where they must decide he would be sure to complete the transaction if baptism closed the deal. He would not let the person out of his sight unless he baptized them. They could not be his joy and crown if they were not saved. (Phil 4:1) As much as he liked the Olympic games, I can picture him wrestling someone into the water if salvation were in there. The Gospel and the Cross are much simpler that. Faith plus anything is too complex.

He was to preach the Gospel, but not with wisdom of words. The word wisdom is the Greek word, sophia. Philosophy comes from philos, a fraternal love and the word sophia. A philosopher is supposed to be a lover of wisdom. More often than not, I fear they are a lover of their own words, philologos, than of wisdom. (Hmm, can I coin a Koine Greek phrase?) Paul was not going there.

Paul would do nothing to make the Cross of Christ of none effect or neutralized. The Galatians through ignorance and the sleight of hand of the Judaizers were neutralizing the Cross by leaving faith and going to works or faith plus and Paul read them the riot act! (Gal 3)

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.

To the pseudo-intellectuals of this world the Cross is just too simple. They want a chance to prove how great they are and how wonderful it is that God has them around. They think the whole thing foolish, absurd, and silly. "What!" they say, "I only have to admit that I am a sinner and accept the work of Christ on the Cross for my salvation! That is ridiculous. I need no one’s help to get to God. I am good enough and I will get better as I do such and such!" That is like saying that a tomato with a small rot spot will get rid of it one day as it lies on the ground sweltering in the summer sun.

The very thing they cast away as being too simple is the very power or dynamite of God that blows away their theories and wisdom. You must simply believe Jesus because the World is ignorant! God has destroyed its wisdom!

19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

Paul is referring to Isaiah 29:14. In Isaiah 29:13, God was saying that His people were giving lip service to Him, but had hearts that were far from Him. This is what would prompt God to do a marvelous and stunning thing. That thing would wipe out the prating of those who professed to have understanding and wisdom.

From the first theological misconception that resulted in the eviction of Adam and Eve from the garden, man has talked about God and devised ways to serve Him and please Him. Like Adam and Eve, they missed the simplicity. Once Eve added touching to the ban on eating the fruit the foundation was laid for all the complex religious activity throughout the following centuries.

You can choose any religion from the earliest antiquities up to today’s cults and even "mainline" denominations and read some pretty pious platter. A lot of it sounds holy and the mystical things seem to add to the aura of God and the need of complex rituals of service or atonement to even get close to God maybe liking you. If you are lucky and follow all these things as much as possible then God may only allow you to suffer a little bit here and maybe your stint in purgatory will be less or your karma will cut some time out of your reincarnation cycles.