Tropical Sands Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

The Wisdom of God The church that Paul founded in the city of Corinth was a diverse body of people. The rich and the poor, the well-educated and the illiterate, Jews and Gentiles were all worshipping together, and Paul had to teach them to treat one another as equals. Some of them were well-educated and thought themselves most qualified to lead the church. Others claimed special knowledge from God which qualified them as leaders. Some preferred the simple witness of Paul, while others were inspired by a great speaker and friend of Paul's, names Apolos. So in today's scripture from Paul's first letter to that church, he is not putting down learning or education. But, he does point out that human wisdom is limited and, in some ways, incapable of understanding God. Let's hear the word of the LORD: For the message about Christ's death on the cross is nonsense to those who are being lots; but for us who are being saved, it is God's power. The scripture says, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and set aside the understanding of the scholars." So then, where does that leave the wise men? Or the scholars? Or the skillful debaters of this world? God has shown that this world's wisdom is foolishness! For God, in his wisdom, made it impossible for men to know him by means of their own wisdom. Instead, God decided to save those who believe, by means of the "foolish" message we preach. Jews want miracles for proof, and Greeks look for wisdom. As for us, we proclaim Christ on the cross, a message that is offensive to the Jews and nonsense to the Gentiles; but for those whom God has called, both Jews and Gentiles, this message is Christ, who is the power of God and the wisdom of God. For what seems to be God's foolishness is wiser than men's wisdom, and what seems to be God's weakness is stronger than men's strength. --1 Corinthians 1:18-25. Let's start with a reality check. If you are like me, there have been times in your life when you thought everything through, did your homework, made what you thought was the best decision and planned your work down to the last detail. You gave it all the smarts you could muster, and you took the advice of the wisest people you know. Does that always work out? Have you ever discovered that no matter how hard you tried, you still made the wrong decision? Were you ever absolutely certain about something, only to find out later that you had bad information, or that you were just plain wrong? I know I have. Wisdom is better than ignorance, but when it comes to living a Christian life, human wisdom just isn't enough. It reminds me of reading Aristotle. Aristotle was a great teacher, a student of Plato. Aristotle lived about three centuries before Christ and was a tutor to Alexander the Great. For more than a thousand years, his works were as close as we came to science textbooks throughout Europe. Aristotle discovered that the earth was round, not flat, just by thinking about it. He also decided that stars were bigger than the earth, just far away. By any measure, Aristotle was brilliant. For more than a thousand years, the works of Aristotle were about as close as universities came to science textbooks. The world was slow to accept his greatest observation, that the world must be round, and not flat, until around the time of Christopher Columbus, who dared to sail around it in 1492. And Aristotle's view that the earth was the center of the universe would be held for more than 100 years more. Somehow, somewhere, the church decided that the Bible agreed with Aristotle, that the earth was the center of the universe. A few years after Columbus sailed, Copernicus figured out that the earth actually rolls around the sun, and not vice versa, but when Galileo tried to say the same thing a hundred years later, after inventing the telescope to prove it, he was nearly burned at the stake. The point I'm trying to make is that when you read Aristotle, you can be convinced that what he says is true. It is well said, carefully reasoned, well researched -- and dead wrong. What was accepted for more than a thousand years as the best Human Wisdom available was dead wrong. That's why good science no longer claims to "know" anything -- because they do know that they might be wrong, and that religious people get upset when you shake up their apple cart. After all, the Catholic Church was upset with Martin Luther when he said the grace of God is enough to save us, and Martin Luther was using the Bible to make his argument. So the best science works with theories. They only call them facts these days in protest against religious people, who also claim to know the facts. A theory is good if it works to explain things, and not so good if experiments show that it isn't so useful. So good science accepts the Theory of Universal Ignorance, which says that of all the things anyone might claim to know, one or more of those things is dead wrong. In today's scripture, Paul is endorsing the Theory of Universal Ignorance against both science and religion. The death of Christ is foolishness to both the Jews, because it doesn't fit their religion, and to the Greeks, because it doesn't fit their logic. I think we hurt ourselves bad when we misinterpret the instruction that we must believe in the Gospel to be saved. People think that to "believe" means we have to "know" something without evidence. In our day, a lot of so-called believers are simply people who are pretending to know something that others don't accept. That is dishonest, and when I try to convince people to believe in the Gospel, I am not asking anyone to pretend to believe anything. And let's not pretend to understand the Bible, either. Everyone used to think the world was flat, even though Isaiah described the earth as an orb, which is round. And I don't know where the Bible says anything about the Earth being the center of the universe. "What is man, that God is mindful of him?" The Bible seems to say what the scientists say, that earth is just a speck in the universe. We think the Bible has it wrong, when really it's the people who claim to know what it says that are wrong. That makes us reject it, or not take it seriously, when we would be better off reading it for ourselves. The wisdom of God is this little thing we call the Truth. Scientists used to talk about the steady state theory, which says the universe always existed and there was no creation. Then they proved that everything is moving farther apart, spreading out from a single point, so now we have the Big Bang theory. Everything exploded from a single point, and God said, let there be light. So scientists came up with a quasi-steady-state theory, which says that it's a cycle, like a yoyo, where everything explodes, then contracts back in to explode again. That would make it a cycle, not creation. That would mean this spreading out is slowing down, but it isn't... measurement says it's all spreading faster and faster. Voila! there was a first moment, and God said, Let there be light. What about this Adam and Eve story? As recently as 1971, scientists were working with a multi-regional origin theory, which said that the various races came from subhuman beings in different places on the planet. That means no Adam and Eve, no first humans, and it also lets us assume that people of different races really are different from us, and deserve different treatment. But in 2001, we learned to read genetic code. Reading the genetic code, we learn that we are all, all races and nations, descended from a common human ancestor. And with that, we're back to Adam and Eve. So before we say that science has disproved the Bible, we have to find someone who really knows what the Bible says. The Theory of Universal Ignorance applies as much to the Bible as to anything else. It is a leap of faith to say that the Bible is true. It is also a leap of faith to say that the Bible is false. It takes a lot less faith to say that we don't know everything about the Bible, and we don't know everything about the Universe. The wisdom of God is beyond understanding. All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. Every theory falls, but the Theory of Universal Ignorance wins out again and again. Believe does not mean to know what you don't know. A better word is trust. You try a theory, and it works, and you learn to trust it. You might not know everything, but you learn to trust a theory because it works. It has been said that Christianity would be a wonderful religion if someone would just try it. When we claim to know Christ but ignore his commands to forgive, to love, to be generous, to trust God, then we are proving by our actions that we do not believe like we claim to believe. "Why do you call me Lord and not do what I say?" It does not matter what we say we believe; what do our actions say we believe? What is our working theory? We are marching toward Easter, and we are asking the world to believe a fantastic claim. We say that Jesus was the Christ, and that God proved it by raising him from the dead on the third day. We say that he has the power to change lives, but do we live a changed life? We say we are his followers, but are we truly following in his footsteps? What is our working theory? Faith is not a matter of knowing what you cannot know. Faith is a matter of trusting something that can't be proven. Maybe your spirit knows; maybe you just have a deep-down gut feeling that God really does love us enough to die for us. You can trust the wisdom of Man, even though it always falls short, or you can trust your gut and see what happens. I listen to scientists and I listen to preachers, and I take them both with a grain of salt, with the Theory of Universal Ignorance. I can only know God if His spirit talks to my spirit. But if someone says that it doesn't happen, that it isn't true, I'm going to salt it with the Theory of Universal Ignorance. Don't let the debate between science and religion keep you away from your salvation. Wisdom can't save us, because the Truth is something bigger than both science and religion. So I'm asking you to take that leap of faith. Work with the theory. Go with your gut. This walk with God is offensive to religion and foolishness to science, but to those who believe, it is the power of God. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Joel Tucker Tropical Sands Christian Church March 19, 2006