AP

1 Corinthians 2:14-15  The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.  The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.

These verses are helpful for us to reflect on as we seek to serve the Lord faithfully in our present culture.  This is not surprising because our culture is very similar to the Corinthian culture Paul was addressing.

The heart of the gospel message we are committed to sharing with our family, our neighbours, our friends, and our colleagues is this: we were all made in he image and likeness of our God who is eternal; we are all sinners whose lives offend our just and righteous Creator, and we therefore stand condemned before him and are destined to spend our eternity separated from his presence in a place which Jesus described as “outer darkness” and a “place [where] there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12) and which is referred to as Hell; our loving, compassionate God and Heavenly Father has not left us in this condition, but has sent his own Son to die in our place as a substitute for us, and by submitting humbly to him in repentance-and-faith as our Saviour and Lord we receive the free gift of eternal life by God’s grace alone (John 3:16).  With a moment’s reflection it is clear that such a message has no traction in our present culture, any more than it did in Corinth 2,000 years ago.

At every point it is gobbledegook (folly, foolishness) to modern man.  The Apostle Paul therefore tells us three things: firstly, that this is exactly the sort of reaction we should expect from those with whom we share the gospel; secondly, that people can only respond positively to this message as the Holy Spirit softens their hearts/minds and grants them ‘spiritual’ discernment, which makes ‘grace alone’ the basis of salvation, and intercessory prayer an essential component of our witnessing (Do we spend as much time talking to God about our friend as we spend talking to our friend about God?); and thirdly, we should not be surprised if people ‘judge’ us as ‘mad’. But we are only answerable to God for how we speak and not to human logic (‘wisdom’).

As Paul said in Chapter 1:23-25 – “but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”   So let us never give up in our God-given task even when our efforts seem fruitless.  Our job is to ‘plant’ and ‘water’ – it is God who gives the growth. (1 Corinthians 3:6)

– Bruce Christian