August 2

The Apostle Paul didn’t think much of the great thinkers of his day. In fact, he stood on Mars Hill in Athens, where the most astute minds of the age gathered to reflect together and expound to the crowds that gathered around them to drink in of their insight, and he refuted their wisdom. Paul refuted their pantheon of gods and presented to them the only true wisdom on earth—that of Jesus Christ and Him crucified and arisen for all mankind.

In I Corinthians 1:20 Paul challenged the believers at Corinth to ponder, “Where is the wisdom of the philosopher? Where is the knowledge of the scholar? Where is the skill of the debater? Has not God revealed the foolishness of this world and its supposed wisdom?”

If those words were true when Paul wrote them, how much more must they prick our hearts and minds today? We see the news as it unfolds and watch as institutions thought unshakable crumble before our eyes and as documents upon which our nation was established are shredded by novice politicians who know nothing of statesmanship—and we know wisdom has been swallowed up by folly.

Where do we turn for answers when the voice of reason has been silenced? We must lift our eyes to Jesus, as Paul admonished the Corinthians to do. We must recognize the abject futility of placing our hope in governments or in the men who corrupt them. We must be steadfast in our reliance upon Christ—and be willing to submerge the wisdom of the world in Him, the Truth of the Ages.