Scholars are important to the world, because people are going to them for answers to life's perplexities. They look to them for authority, to back up their arguments. They say, when they are talking, "Well, so-and-so said this. And that so-and-so is an expert. They are a scholar in that particular field." The implication is—"If so-and-so said this, I am, therefore, correct in what I am saying." We all do it. I do it. It is part of our way of life, our way of thinking, our way of expressing. We want to have authority for the things that we say.
But I think it is so intriguing that God is forming a Family, but it is a Family without very many scholars. To me, there is at least one obvious reason. It is not that God has not called them, but they have, by and large, rejected His calling—because they belong to that group of "the great of this world" who will not become converted. They feel that they have too much to lose! The sacrifice required for conversion is, for them, too great.
I said to myself, "Now, wait a minute! My Savior was a blue-collar worker. He was a carpenter. Peter, James, and John—and possibly also Andrew—were fishermen. That is blue-collar work."
Some scholars do come into the church. By this I mean people who are more gifted intellectually. And that is fine. But these people have a weakness that they need to recognize—they seem to be drawn toward what I call "esoteric twigs" that do not amount to a hill of beans as far as the Kingdom of God is concerned. Esoteric means mysterious, or some knowledge that is understood only by a few. You might be able to pick out your own areas that you have noticed within the church, where these people seem to rise. They have the idea that they kind of have something others do not have.
There is an interesting statement in I Corinthians 8, as we continue this. Once a scholar gets hold of some of this knowledge that captivates him, it tends to impact on him in three ways. (Sometimes one, sometimes two, sometimes all three.) What happens is that a form of elitism begins to develop, which tells the scholar that he is better than others are because look at what he possesses! It is called the pride of life, in I John 2:16.
The third is perhaps the most dangerous of all to the scholar, in that it begins to shift the scholar's dependence entirely towards his knowledge. I do not know whether you realize this, but this was a major factor in destroying Israel and Judah's relationship with God. You will find the prophets of God, the teachers of God, and Jesus Christ Himself saying things like: "Think not that you have Abraham as your father."
Does esoteric information, or knowledge, make us better than others? It makes us more responsible than others. They thought that they had salvation merely because they possessed this knowledge that others did not have. And so their attitude towards the Gentiles was that they were "dogs." They were "beneath them." No, it produces responsibility in God's eyes—not elitism.
But you see what happened with Israel and Judah. They put their faith (their dependence) on whom they were related to—almost as if salvation was something that came through the bloodlines, merely because Abraham was God's friend and they were descended from Abraham. But Jesus had to straighten them out, by saying, "Your father is Satan, the devil." That is quite a different perspective!
Israel did the same thing, as recorded in the book of Amos. God said the punishment was coming upon Israel and Judah because ofwho they were. He said, "You only have I made this covenant with; therefore, you shall be punished." They were relying upon the association with God through the covenant as the means of their salvation—esoteric knowledge (destructive to them in their relationship to God, because esoteric knowledge cannot stand by itself). That is what I Corinthians 8:1-3 is reminding us.
That is far more … . . .
Grace also eliminates for us the possibility of any boasting or any self-glory.
Regardless of our material accomplishments—no matter how may doctorate degrees we have, no matter how much money we have accumulated, no matter how many good deeds we have done—nobody can boast before God because, as verse 30 says, we are of Him. This is the key to understanding this. We are of Him. He is saying that in spiritual terms, all that we have accomplished has been accomplished only because of what He gave.
What we have spiritually is only possible because we are of Him, that is, what we have been given. This particular phrase is describing personal attachment—we are of Him. It is a personal attachment. It's like we are part of a living body, which we are. The church is a living, spiritual organism. The picture that is in the apostle's mind is that we are directly connected to Him, even as the toe is attached to the foot bone, the foot bone to the ankle bone. All of this is connected together and all of this received its strength, its life, its existence, its growth, its repair—everything comes because it is part of the body. Get the point here?
What does the toe have to boast for its part in playing its role in the body? You get the point? Nobody can boast before God because of grace. We only have what we have spiritually because He has given it.
