The foolishness of God and the foolishness of Christians.

In scripture “fool” is a synonym for “stupid.” Exactly why are Christians embracing stupidity?

There is one, and only one, instance in which foolishness is seen as a positive in the scriptures.

The teaching about the cross, to those who are destroying themselves, is stupid. To we who are being saved, it is God’s power. It’s written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will set aside the thinking of the thinkers.” (Is 29.14) Where are the wise? Where are the scholars? Where are the sophists of our time? Hasn’t God made the wisdom of the universe silly? since—in God’s wisdom—the universe didn’t recognize God through wisdom, God was pleased to save the believers through a stupid message. Jews ask for miracles and Greeks seek wisdom; we proclaim a Messiah who had been crucified.

To Jews, this is scandalous, and to Gentiles moronic. To those who are called, Jew and Greek, the Messiah is the power and wisdom of God. God’s “moronic” idea beats human wisdom; God’s “weakness” beats human strength. Look at your calling, family: not many are worldly-wise, not many powerful, not many noble. Instead, God chose for Himself the universe’s morons so that He could shame the wise. God chose for Himself the universe’s weaklings so that He could shame the strong. God chose for Himself the universe’s bastards and rejects—things that are nothing—so that things that are, may become useless. This way nobody can make a big deal of themselves before God.

Because of Him, you are in Messiah Jesus, who became our wisdom before God: rightness, holiness, freedom. Just as it’s written, “The boaster boasts in the Lord.” (Jr 9.24)

—1Co 1.18-31 KWL

Got that concept in your head nice and solid? Good.

Not so much? Okay: God’s plan of salvation—the cross—strikes pagans as stupid. It’s more commonly translated as “foolish,” but the idea behind it is willfully choosing to make no sense or reject wisdom—in other words, stupid. To the Jew, God’s great acts are worth celebrating; to the Greek, brilliant intellectual ideas are worth celebrating. To the Christian, we had our Lord beaten unrecognizable and nailed to a post, and that’s worth celebrating. You see Paul’s point now? We come across as idiots for even associating such a thing.

Well, nowadays we don’t, because Christianity is so commonplace. The only people that accuse Christians of being idiots these days are obnoxious atheists who actually have the common sense to recognize the ludicrousness of the cross. Everyone else just thinks of it as jewelry.

Since we’ve lost sight of this, the idea that God’s foolishness is better than the world’s wisdom has taken on a whole new interpretation among Christians—one that it was never meant to have. It has spawned the obnoxious trend of people who think that God means for us Christians to be stupid.

Because God uses morons, supposedly He wants us to remain morons. Any wisdom is suspected of being “worldly” and therefore corrupt. Thankfully I don’t run into such people often—my church has a lot of well-educated people in it—but from time to time I encounter these types. When I want to know why they’re being willfully stupid, they defend themselves with verse 25 and other such passages about not being too wise in your own eyes, not being proud (for to them, “humble” means “dumb”), and of course that Jesus’s disciples never went to college. Of course they have no idea that there were no colleges as we know them in that day; if a first-century Jew wanted a first-class education he hung out with and listened to a brilliant rabbi for a few years. Like, say, Jesus. But of course they know nothing about history. Remember, they value stupidity.

Yes, God uses foolish things to confound the wise; but what confounds them so much is how God takes those foolish things and makes them wise. God’s depiction of the universe makes sense. God’s plan of salvation works. The wisest people in the universe missed all this—and had to invent their own religions—because they lacked the crucial revelation that God had to provide in order to make sense of everything. And once He provided it, they didn’t get it because it ran so contrary to their ideas.

But now that we have it, and now that we get it (if we get it; some people are happier thinking of it as an unfathomable mystery) God expects us to grow in the likeness of His Son—and Jesus is not a stupid man. Nor does He want stupid followers. He can use them; but considering He can use a talking donkey that’s really not saying much. He wants us to be as sensible as snakes, (Mt 10.16) and while snakes can be pretty dumb sometimes, they at least think several steps ahead. It’s time for many Christians to turn their brains back on.

January ’08 Synchroblog.

Yep, this is a synchroblog. The subject is “God’s call to the fools,” and some other fools like me have posted on it; pick one of their posts from the pop-up list and click “Go read it!”

Sonja Andrews: "Fools Rush In" Reba Baskett: "What A Fool I've Been" Lisa Borden: "My Foolish Calling" Jonathan Brink: "That Darn Ego" Mike Bursell: "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right..." Julie Clawson: "The Power of Paradox" Jenelle D'Alessandro: "Quiet Now, God's Calling" David Fisher: "Ship of Fools" Adam Gonnerman: "Strength on the Margins" Father Gregory: "Hut Burning for God" Cindy Harvey: "A Fool's Choice" Steve Hayes: "Blessed are the foolish—foolish are the blessed" Alan Knox: "Won't Get Fooled Again" K.W. Leslie: "The foolishness of God and the foolishness of Christians." Paul Walker: "Fool if you think its over" Erin Word: "Foolish Heart" Phil Wyman: "The Holy Fool" Cobus van Wyngaard: "God Used This Fool"