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Why Does God Choose the Foolish? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Good Monday. Today's question on the table asks why God chose the foolish things
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  of the world and not the wise and powerful. Why not use the wealthiest
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  innovators and the smartest geniuses, and the most articulate orders, and the world's
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  greatest athletes and most recognizable movie stars to spread his gospel around the world.
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  Why does God prefer to choose and use the weak in his mission? The
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  question comes from a podcast listener by the name of Euclid who lives in the
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  Philippines. Hello, Pastor John, I have given my life to the great
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  commission and desire to share the Gospel to all nations. In First Corinthians one
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  twenty seven, it says that God chose what is foolish in the world to
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  shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the
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  strong. Here's my question, Why didn't God save all the worldly wise to
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  proclaim the Gospel to the whole world. Wouldn't that have made a faster and
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  greater impact in world evangelization than simply choosing a bunch of foolish people to do
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  his work. Well praised God that he chooses to us his foolish people.
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  The answer. The first answer I'd say is the impact of all those wise
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  people. Although smart people, those intellectual people, those gifted people, might
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  have been faster, and might have been outwardly greater, but it wouldn't have
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  been Christianity. Yeah, if the Son of God had come into the world
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  as a warrior or a philosopher to impact the world with his power and his
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  intelligence, the impact would have been quicker and more outwardly impressive, but it
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  wouldn't have been Christianity. We can hardly overestimate. I've been impressed with this
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  so much recently working through First Corinthians for a look at the book. We
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  can hardly overestimate the importance of the decision God made in heaven, indeed before
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  the foundation of the world, that He would redeem a people and define a
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  people through the weakest and most despicable death imaginable, the slaughtering by crucifixion of
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  Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It was a scandal, a stumbling
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  block, an absolute foolishness, a shame, an utter indignity. And that
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  is how we are saved. That is how the Gospel triumphs. The entire
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  first three chapters of Paul's letter to the Corinthian is written to clarify for the
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  Corinthians and us that Christianity will not be defined by, or it will not
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  spread by the excellence of human oratory or the impressiveness of human intellect. Those
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  two focuses the pride in Karth were the great oratory and the great intellect.
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  And evidently the Corinthian Church was quite enamored by these things. They were boasting
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  by saying I am of Pause, I'm of Apolos, I'm of Cephus.
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  And they were finding borrowed boasting, borrowed celebrity, borrowed praise by lining up
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  behind the teacher that they thought would be superior in oratory or intellect. And
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  Paul devoted three chapters to showing why this is not the meaning of Christianity,
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  nor is it the way forward for Christianity. When Paul heard that they were
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  saying I am of Paul, he cried out, what was Paul crucified?
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  For you? It could believe that they were turning the message of Christ crucified
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  into a matter of boasting in his skills. Then three verses later he says,
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  Christ sent me to preach the gospel, not with words of eloquent wisdom,
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  lest the Cross of Christ be emptied of its power. Those were the
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  two issues, human eloquence, human intellect, oratory er udian clever with words,
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  sharp with brain power. These were the great focuses of admiration and pride.
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  In Corinth, and Paul said, in effect, oratory and intellect might
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  get bigger, crowds might get bigger, acclaim might have a quicker impact on
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  the public, but it wouldn't be Christianity. It would, in fact be
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  a denial of Christ and an emptying of the Cross. Because the Cross of
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  Christ means the end of boasting in human achievements. It means the replacing of
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  that kind of boasting with Christ, exalting childlike trust in a redeemer. Because
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  of how desperately needy and sinful we are. The Cross of Christ isn't just
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  Christ's death, It's our death. I am crucified with Christ, crucified to
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  the self salvation and self exaltation of pride. Then, in chapter one,
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  verse eighteen, Pulse says, the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,
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  but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
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  Then, in that amazing verse twenty one. Three verses later, he
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  tells us why human wisdom, human intellect reason what we are by nature alone,
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  Why intellect reason nature cannot find ultimate wisdom in God or salvation. Here's
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  what he says, Since in the wisdom of God, that's the key phrase,
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  by and in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God
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  through wisdom. It pleased God through the foolishness of what we preach to save
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  those who believe God's wisdom. Decided that human wisdom would not be the way
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  of salvation. Rather, faith in divine foolishness would be the way of salvation.
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  Verse twenty five. The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and
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  the weakness of God is stronger than men. And the point to emphasize for
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  our friend Euclid in the Philippines is it never looks like that. It never
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  looks like it. The foolishness of God is wiser than men, but it
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  doesn't look like it. It looks like foolishness. And the weakness of God
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  is stronger than men, but it doesn't look like it. It looks like
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  weakness. That's Christianity. This is the way the Gospel advances in the world.
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  Paul says it again in chapter two, verse one. When I came
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  to you, brothers, I did not come in with lofty speech or wisdom.
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  There it is again, lofty speech, skillful impressive Greek eloquence, or
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  wisdom philosophical impressiveness. Why Paul, That's what Euclid is asking, why not
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  use lofty speech and human intellect? And verse five gives the answer. Chapter
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  two, verse five, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom
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  of men, but in the power of God. Now, Euclid began by
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  quoting First Corinthians one twenty seven and asking why didn't God save all the worldly
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  wise to proclaim the Gospel to the whole world. Wouldn't that have made a
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  faster and greater impact in world evangelization. So let's end where Euclid began,
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  because that paragraph gives two clear answers to the question why wouldn't God do it
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  that way? Here's what he says. Consider your calling, brothers. Not
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  many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful,
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  not many were of noble birth. But God shows what is foolish in the
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  world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world,
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  to shame the wrong. God shows what is low and despised in the world,
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  even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are.
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  And here's his first answer, so that no human being might boast in the
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  presence of God. And then he continues, and because of Him, because
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  of God, you are in Christ, Jesus, who became to us wisdom
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  from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. So that and here's the
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  second answer, as it is written, Let the one who boasts boast in
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  the Lord. So why not spread the gospel among the nations faster and with
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  greater impact through wise, powerful, noble born people. Two answers. One
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  so that no human might boast in the presence of God. Number two,
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  so that those who boast would boast only in the Lord. God's aim in
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  world evangelization is to hoot an end to human pride and to make Jesus the
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  focus of all human praise. His ways are not our ways. We just
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  need to settle it. His ways are not our ways. Christ Crucified defines
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  everything, Amen, Pastor John. The Cross of Christ defines everything, all
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  of it. When it comes to the means, the message, and the
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  messengers. God's entire mission is shaped by the foolishness of the Cross of Christ.
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  That's why Paul can say we are completing or filling up Christ's afflictions as
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  we reach the world. All those connections really landed on me recently as I
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  wrote a book a summary of the first decade of this podcast. We'll be
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  talking about that in the coming months. I took our first ten years of
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  episodes and synthesize them thematically into one big book that will be released in early
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  twenty twenty four. But this point resonated with me as I wrote that section
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  on this it's not despite our weakness and suffering, but it's through our suffering
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  that we reach the world with the message of the suffering Christ on the Cross.
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  Glorious, profound, counterintuitive, and entirely contrary to the claims of prosperity
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  preachers. The implications are far and wide. I'm your host, Tony Rankie.
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  We'll see you back here on Thursday, where Pastor John applies all of
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  this and shares the Gospel with a nonbeliever. We'll see then