The Foolishness of God

“For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”

~1 Corinthians 1:25 (NRSV).

Be a fool for God? Sometimes we need to be. Certainly the world will see us that way, and our real trouble is most of the time we’ll believe the world and not see how we’re overcoming the world when we simply laugh quietly within ourselves at it.

Still, disregarding the theory it’s never quite that easy.

Unconventional Wisdom

The world will never understand the thing for which it most often marvels at.

It is the unconventional godly wisdom—the ‘foolishness of God,’ as Paul puts it—that the world connects as, on the one hand patently ridiculous, but on the other totally motivational and inspirational.

The world loves this unconventional wisdom when it pays off—when it’s seen to work—but before that it’s absurd. So, therefore, the world cannot have it, for unconventional wisdom is sown in faith.

The world—and those thinking worldly—reveals itself and themselves as faithless and Godless.

One Thing of Certain Assurance

God always wins. We’re always better off siding with God, for God’s worst is always superior to humanity’s best.

And this is central to the Apostle Paul’s argument, that the minority of ‘noisy’ Corinthian believers—those ardently opposing Paul—were missing the wood for the trees, totally missing as they did the whole concept of God. They had no idea who they were turning against. But God always has the last laugh.

Our Best ‘Bet’

Our best allegiance is with God, even when all the odds are against our Lord. God has a certain way of turning the tables, and this, usually via outcomes that we couldn’t previously predict.

No one sided with Jesus as he went the way of Calvary, but God’s wisdom of the cross was foolishness for humankind, and look at just who’s having the last laugh now.

If we were betting people we’d always have to place our money on God’s best will turning out in the long run. We’d attract remarkably short odds by the knowledge of God, but they’d paradoxically be very long without account of God i.e. which is the world’s way.

Therein lays the reason for our faith. Faith relies on the certainty of hope; a belief in action that certain things will come to pass.

God’s always in control no matter how foolish the things of God are perceived by humankind beforehand or during the process.

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.