“The Wisdom Of God And The Power Of God!”

“The Wisdom Of God And The Power Of God!”(I Cor.1:18-25).
The majority of people in the vicinity where ten year old Mbongo the urchin lived made fun of him because they had concluded that he was a dullard. Mbongo’s problem was that he could not tell the difference between a fifty franc coin and a hundred franc coin. People constantly made fun of him by showing him two coins and asking him to take the hundred franc coin. Each time he was toyed with he took only the fifty franc coin for a hundred franc coin. The more he took the fifty franc coin for a hundred franc coin, the more the people toyed with him.
One evening an old man took him aside and asked why for all these long time he was not able to differentiate between the coins. Mbongo shocked the old man. He told the old man that he knew the difference. “Then why do you always choose the wrong coin?” Mbongo replied, “The people keep toying with me because they know I don’t know the right coin. The more I take the wrong coin the more they toy with me, and the more they toy with me, the more money I make. The day I chose the right coin they will stop toying with me and I will lose my source of income.”
Mbongo represents “the foolishness of God” which “is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God” which “is stronger than man’s strength.”
Justin Martyr was a Greek philosopher who converted to Christ because to him Christ was the true philosophy. He said, “I fell in love with the prophets and these men who had loved Christ; I reflected on all their words and found that this philosophy alone was true and profitable.”
We do not have to be wise or strong to know Christ. We know him and accept him by intuition.
It is not as if human wisdom is insignificant. On the contrary, human wisdom becomes godly wisdom when it is directed to Christ.
Paul was a Jewish scholar cum philosopher. He studied Jewish Law under one of the best legal minds of his time. When he was converted he redirected all his scholarship to the cause of the gospel.
Justin Martyr cited above, when he converted to Christ became a great apologetic for the gospel. He wrote “The Apologies” which are some of the important treatises in defense of the gospel. When he was arrested for his faith in Rome, he was asked to denounce his faith by sacrificing to an idol, but he replied, “No one who is rightly minded turns from true belief to false.”
Prof. Kwame Bediako was born and raised in a Christian family, but while studying in France for his MA and PhD in African literature he became an atheist. While still in France he had a radical conversion while he was having a shower. He left some of us his students with these remarkable words that, “Any academic pursuit is a quest for truth, which, when found must be submitted at the feet of Christ.”
Human wisdom and power that undermines the wisdom and power of the cross are for those who are perishing, “but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
The crucified Christ who reigns supreme in eternity from the beginning of time defies human logic and cannot be proven through miracles. Humanbeings are not skilled to understand the power inherent in the weakness exhibited through the cross.
If God has called you, then the crucified Christ is to you “the power of God and the wisdom of God!”
Come to him, put your trust in him and he will enter your name in the book of the saved.
Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, I believe that you are the power of God and the wisdom of God. Amen!
Have a blessed day! Peace be with you!
Prayer point: Pray for divine wisdom.
Rev Babila Fochang.