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Pathways Through Paul
Daily Devotional
May 28
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Today's Pathway:
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We have seen that Paul's purpose in ministry was to preach the Gospel. He did not use rhetoric or reason, but instead simply proclaimed the truth concerning the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord. In verse 18 he states that the unsaved world views the message of salvation through Christ's sacrifice on the cross as foolishness. Some refuse to believe that the crucifixion and resurrection occurred. Some deny that Jesus was God in the flesh. Some see it as all unnecessary because they believe in man's inherent goodness. Some believe that there has to be something that man must do himself to earn salvation. For all these reasons, and many more, most of mankind rejects the Gospel, and thinks of those who accept it as being fools.
Paul then states that those who have believed the Gospel realize that it is the power of God. He said something similar in his epistle to the Roman:
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth" (Romans 1:16).
According to John 1:12, receiving the Gospel gives men the "power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name". Were it not for the Gospel all men would be doomed to an eternity in the Lake of Fire. Were it not that someone "preached" that message to us, we who are saved would never have heard, and never been able to believe it. What the world calls foolishness, God calls powerful, because it alone brings salvation and changes people's lives.
In verse 19 Paul references God's statement in Isaiah 29:14 that He will ultimately destroy the world's "wisdom" by proving it wrong and revealing it to be the folly that it is. In verse 20 he expands on that by asking a very important question: so what have all these "really smart" people actually accomplished? The world has rejected God's Word and chosen to follow its own thinking, and what has been the result? John MacArthur summarizes the verse this way,
"Where are all the smart people that have the answers? How much closer to peace is man than he was a century ago - or a millennium ago? How much closer are we to eliminating poverty, hunger, ignorance, crime, and immorality than men were in Paul’s day? Our advances in knowledge and technology and communication have not really advanced us. It is from among those who are intelligent and clever that the worst exploiters, deceivers, and oppressors come. We are more educated than our forefathers but we are not more moral. We have more means of helping each other but we are not less selfish. We have more means of communication but we do not understand each other any better. We have more psychology and education, and more crime and more war. We have not changed, except in finding more ways to express and excuse our human nature. Throughout history human wisdom has never basically changed and has never solved the basic problems of man."
Verse 21 is very appropriate in our day and age. God's wisdom is revealed to us in creation. We are surrounded by God's wisdom. However, in its alleged intelligence, the world doesn't acknowledge God or believe in Him. Brian Bell put it this way,
"Brilliant astronomers chart the orbits and shapes of the stars and planets. But their telescopes never lead to God. Astronauts explore our universe. But they don’t discover God. Scientists peer through their microscopes and record the details of a world invisible to human eyes, scrutinizing, analyzing, hypothesizing, theorizing. But their spiritual lenses are also microscopic, so they never see God. Intellectual educators read and study and probe the classics. But in all their humanistic research, they, too, never find God. No, the world through its wisdom has not come to know God."
So what is it that enables men to find God? The preaching of the Gospel, and man's choosing to believe it!
Pastor Mark J Montgomery
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