To Encourage You

1 Corinthians 3:18-20 “Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, ’He catches the wise in their craftiness,’ and again, ’The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.’”

Has anyone ever called you a fool? Have you ever been made to feel that your viewpoints weren’t worth sharing, and that you had nothing to say that was relevant? Are your thoughts rejected by most people? According to the verses above, if this describes you, it may be a very good thing. It’s all about perspective, i.e., who is the judge of what is wise and what is foolish – God or men?

The Bible teaches us that men are “wise in their own eyes” (Proverbs 26:12) and that they foolishly “measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another” (2 Corinthians 10:12). This is particularly true when it comes to the area of morality. So many people see their own viewpoints as moral and good and thereby have determined that others who don’t agree with them are certainly immoral, wrong, and perhaps evil. And perhaps they have ingratiated themselves to a large group of friends and other like-minded people, which further helps them to feel good about their perspective. Such people determine what is wise and good by their own perspective and the perspective of other men and women in their lives. But who really is the judge? Is what is “wise” the view of the majority, i.e., the popular perspective of society in that day and age? Or is it whatever I decide – or you decide – based on your life experience? Is it whatever feels good, or seems good? Or is it a perspective whose origin is outside of us?

God would have us to know that the judge is certainly not us. He has shown us in His Word that those who do what is right in their own eyes are doomed to disaster, just as at the time of the judges in ancient Israel. Such an approach to life is the life of a fool, from His perspective.  Of course, it’s our choice to believe Him or not.

It was God who blessed King Solomon with His own wisdom, and the people of that day were astonished, for it was obviously a wisdom outside of and far superior to their own views. The Queen of Sheba (a.k.a. the “Queen of the South”) traveled over 1,200 miles to visit him and learn from him (1 Kings 10). Then God sent us His own Son, the one wiser than Solomon, to teach us true wisdom, and it was Jesus who told us “The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here” (Matthew 12:42).

So, who are you listening to? On what is your wisdom and sense of morality based? If it’s anything other than God and His Word, it is based on foolishness in the truest sense of the Word. May God give us the wisdom to listen to Him and measure our viewpoints and the views of those we may be listening to according to His divine and infallible truth.