Foolishness Of The Resurrection/Limits Of Rationality
Preaching
Life Everlasting
The Essential Book of Funeral Resources
Object:
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.
The unvarnished truth is that the resurrection sounds foolish to a scientific age. Dead people do not get up out of their tombs. This text offers an opportunity to point the way toward a truth that transcends our ability to make sense of it, and to a God who is far beyond our rationality. Not that belief in God or resurrection is irrational, but a-rational; beyond rationality. So what? Must everything we experience or believe be confined to the limits of our human ability to grasp it? "No!" says Paul in this passage. For if God is limited by our ability to understand then God is no god at all. Thankfully, God is beyond us, and in God's beyondness we are taken beyond the limits of this life and into the next. Cool, huh?
Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.
The unvarnished truth is that the resurrection sounds foolish to a scientific age. Dead people do not get up out of their tombs. This text offers an opportunity to point the way toward a truth that transcends our ability to make sense of it, and to a God who is far beyond our rationality. Not that belief in God or resurrection is irrational, but a-rational; beyond rationality. So what? Must everything we experience or believe be confined to the limits of our human ability to grasp it? "No!" says Paul in this passage. For if God is limited by our ability to understand then God is no god at all. Thankfully, God is beyond us, and in God's beyondness we are taken beyond the limits of this life and into the next. Cool, huh?
