Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
Foolish, God has Called
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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Deuteronomy 7:6-8
God is following a pattern He established long ago in performing His creative efforts. He reveals it in His dealings with Israel, and He is still following it to this day. Nothing in Deuteronomy 7:6-8 would give the average Israelite a puffed-up mind on the subject of God's calling of them to work in and through them for His creative purposes. He makes it plain that He did not deliver them or work with them because of anything they had already accomplished as a nation. They had been a bunch of slaves! Through the apostle Paul, God exposes a humbling yet accurate truth about those He has called into His church. We must come to grips with it because a humble recognition and acceptance of this reality is necessary for His purposes. We can compare what God says about us with what He said about Israel in Deuteronomy 7. I Corinthians 1:26-31 describes us in this way: For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption—that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.” God is following the same pattern in calling Christians into the church. We are described as “foolish,” “weak,” “base,” and “despised.” It sounds a great deal like lowly Israel. The only major difference is that He called Israel as an entire nation at once, but He calls Christians into His church one at a time. Incidentally, when He calls us, we, too, are a slave people—unwitting slaves in most cases, living under Satan's thumb and taking orders from him.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Leadership and Covenants (Part Two)
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1 Corinthians 1:19-21
God has purposely chosen this means to put proud and stiff-necked man totally in debt to Him for the most important achievement in all of life. Men have accomplished much and will continue to do many great things. However, verses 19-21 expose why the wise of this world will not submit to God. The reason becomes clear in the phrase, "the foolishness of preaching" (verse 21, King James Version [KJV]). This translation is somewhat misleading in the King James; it should read "the foolishness of the message preached," as in the New King James Version (NKJV). Paul is not saying that the wise of this world reject the act of preaching but that they consider the content of the message preached to be foolish. In other words, the wise will not believe the gospel, most specifically that God in the flesh has died for the sins of the world. It cannot be overestimated how important humility expressed by faith before God is to the overall spiritual purpose of God for each individual! Each person must know as fully as possible that Christ died for him, that his own works do not provide forgiveness, and that he has not created himself in Christ Jesus. Nobody evolves into a godly person on the strength of his own will. It is God who works in us both to will and to do (Philippians 2:13). No new creation creates itself. So, by and large, God calls the undignified, base, weak, and foolish of this world, people whom the unbelieving wise consider to be insignificant and of no account. He does this so that no human will glory in His presence. On this, a German commentator, Johann Albrecht Bengel, clarifies, "We have permission to glory, not before God, but in God." The term "in Christ Jesus" (I Corinthians 1:30) indicates that we are in an intimate relationship with Him. Paul then details—through the terms "wisdom," "righteousness," "sanctification," and "redemption"—that God, using our believing, humble, submissive cooperation, will be responsible for all things accomplished in and through us. Some modern commentators believe that, because "wise" and "wisdom" appear so many times earlier in this chapter, the terms "righteousness," "sanctification," and "redemption" should be in parentheses because Paul intends them to define what he means by true wisdom in this context. God, then, is pleased to save those who believe and to do a mighty work in them. This set Abel apart from, as far as we know, every other person living on earth at that time. What he did by faith pictures what everyone who receives salvation must also do to begin his walk toward the Kingdom of God. Everyone must be called of God; believe enough of His Word to know that he is a sinner who needs the blood of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of his sins; repent, that is, undergo a change of mind toward God; and be justified, made legally righteous by having Jesus Christ's righteousness imputed to him. This enables a relationship with God to begin, and sanctification unto glorification can proceed.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Christian Fight (Part Four)
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1 Corinthians 1:26-29
This passage, a New Testament parallel of Deuteronomy 7:7, removes any doubt about the qualifications of those God has chosen to call. Twice in verse 27 and once in verse 28 Paul says, "God has chosen." We did not volunteer. He did not choose us for any skill, ability, or social quality we had. Even those who are "wise," "mighty," and "noble" are not that way through godly spirituality. Instead, God, with deliberate forethought, chose those who were foolish, base, despised, and nothing. What a rag-tag outfit we are! God certainly has not surrounded Himself with the elite to give Himself an advantage in His battle against Satan! He has given Himself, it seems, a great disadvantage in dealing with us when better people may be readily available.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Sovereignty of God: Part Seven
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1 Corinthians 1:26-29
I Corinthians 1:26-29 resounds through our minds as a constant reminder that we are the foolish, weak, base and despised of this world. In these verses God formally states that He has sought no particular advantage in carrying out His purpose by calling us. This is humbling in both a present and future sense. We seem to fall short when we compare ourselves to those who have accomplished great things or seem to have strong and good character in today's world. When we consider the World Tomorrow and the daunting challenges that will face those reconstructing a world out of the chaos of the Tribulation and the Day of the Lord, it is enough to make us feel completely inadequate. Vanity keeps telling us we are intelligent, beautiful, clever, talented, cultured, and unappreciated, but these verses should pull us back to reality. God's assessment is accurate because when we compare our accomplishments with people in the world, ours fade into near nothingness!
John W. Ritenbaugh
Preparing to Rule!
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