This Day in History: 0000-02-02

February 2 – 1 Corinthians 3:18-23 

Stop deceiving yourselves. If you think you are wise by this world’s standards, you need to become a fool to be truly wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As the Scriptures say, “He traps the wise in the snare of their own cleverness.” and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise; He knows they are worthless.”
So don’t boast about following a particular human leader. For everything belongs to you – whether Paul or Apollos or Peter, or the world, or life and death, or the present and the future. Everything belongs to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God. 

People are people, and people are always going to be people, and people are not God. So why do we have this tendency to want to follow people instead of wanting to follow God? Why do we divide up into factions claiming allegiance to the tenants of this group or that group? Why do we turn on those who follow a different human leader and do our best to undermine their assertions of wisdom while clinging to our own? I’m not really sure what the answers are to all those questions, but I know it’s not a new problem. Way back in the early days of the church we find Paul addressing the church of Corinth, admonishing them against this same misstep. 

His answer? Stop it! 

Stop deceiving yourselves and believing you are wise if you’re getting your wisdom from anything other than the Word of God. You’re not! You’re going to get yourself caught in the snare of your own cleverness! Stop trusting other humans to show you God’s will. They can’t. That’s what the Holy Spirit is for. Stop believing the experts who claim to have it all figured out and boiled down to these 5, 7, or 12 steps. They don’t! Their wisdom is worthless in God’s sight. 

The truth is, true wisdom – the wisdom that comes from God – is already ours if we belong to Him, yet so often we fail to claim that which is ours. We continue to look to programs, or pastors, or religious systems, or Bible teachers, or renowned experts to save us from our troubles, or provide us with answers. Friends, we belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to the Father, and He has given us everything. EVERYTHING! Let’s look to Him, and Him alone to give us wisdom. Let’s seek His answers to our problems and find truth!