S200P11 – Who we were: foolish

1 Pet. 2:13-15

Submit yourselves to the authority of every human institution for the sake of the Lord, whether it is to a king as one in a position of power, or to governors as sent by him to bring punishment to those who do wrong, and to praise and encourage those who do right.  For it is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance and irresponsible criticisms of foolish people.

We all know a little bit about something.  Whether due to our education or our profession, each of us has at least one skill or area in which we would be considered knowledgeable.  If you have ever watched a dancing competition on television, I guarantee you have not seen me sitting in the judges’ panel.  The reason for this is pretty clear.  Dancing is certainly not my expertise.  I have no training in it, I have no experience in it, and I could not tell you whether someone is doing it in a way that is technically sound.  If I tried to critique a dancer objectively, I would sound pretty foolish.  It would be obvious that I do not have the knowledge or credentials to sit in that seat.  When it comes to dancing, I am a fool.  Before Jesus, when it came to the things of the God, I was a fool as well.

Being born into sin, our natural response to God is to turn away from him.  We cannot draw ourselves to him; He draws us.  One of the ways in which He does that is by simply displaying his majesty in his creation for us to see. Scripture does not say we are foolish simply because we are born sinful and separated from God.  The foolishness of the unbeliever comes from the rejection of the clear evidence that God presents to us of his existence.  Think of the many things that the scientific community tries to explain by any way other than God’s intervention.  There is a reason for this.  When presented with all of the evidence available to point us to our creator, many of us decide to reject that evidence and try to prove an unsupported case.  This is utter foolishness.  Once we enter into God’s wisdom and truly understand how this all works, then we are able to silence this foolishness when it comes up against us.

Before Jesus, we were sinful by nature but foolish by choice.  When we let God in and allow him to teach us the truth, not some relative truth but the objective truth, then we become wise.  We may look like fools to the world because the world does not understand our frame of reference.  We are similar creatures speaking a very different language. But this language can be learned by anyone who decides to put away that foolishness and seek true wisdom.  That is what happened to us. Not that we can pat ourselves on our backs for growing in wisdom as if we made this happen ourselves, but wisdom starts as a choice.  Let us seek the foolish ones who truly hunger for wisdom and impart to them what God has shown us.  Father, thank You for raising us above the foolishness, and increase your wisdom within us.