The most foolish sage in Christendom

The following words form the Apostle Paul have been on my mind in recent times and they come from 1st Corinthians:

 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 person? Where is the teacher of the law? 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 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 human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are,  so that no one may boast before him.  It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”

There have been no shortage of people in recent days, highly intelligent people lining up to tell us what Jesus would say about this or that topic. Sadly however much of it disagrees with what Jesus himself tells us in the Bible.

The very danger is that we buy into the world's view of wisdom, the world lauds us for our intelligence, our understanding and our progressive outlook. When we are tempted by this it is good to come back to the words of Paul.

The message of the cross will never be acceptable to the intellectual elite, it is after all the message of murdered saviour, the wise things in the world have been shamed by the things that are not. This is not to say that Christianity is a religion that will not bear scrutiny and test. However it is not a religion that will be proved by our own understanding alone.

I am happy to be considered an intellectual Pygmy and to preach the message of the cross which I do because I know that in preaching that message truly I am standing on the shoulders of giants. 

One Year On

Tomorrow marks the day when I will have been ordained into the position of minister of Dumfries Free Church of Scotland. I have had cause to reflect over the past weeks about the past year and some of the things that I have learned:

i) I am a great sinner who needs the grace of Jesus Christ every day. People assume that the ministers have it together and sometimes we do however most of the time we dont. Most of the time we are sinners who are doing their best to minister to other sinners. I still get it wrong I still have those wrong thoughts and still get angry and still...fill in every sin that is in your life because it probably is in mine as well.

This is designed to constantly throw me back on the grace of Jesus Christ because without him I can do nothing, without the working of the Holy Spirit we will achieve nothing. The day that I forget this the day when I think I have it all together is probably the day when it is time when I am in greatest danger.

ii) Not every sermon will change the world. If we are honest when we are at college we imagine preaching sermons that will change the world, that will draw thousands in, the sermons that in 50 years time people will still be listening to.

The reality is that few of us will ever reach those heights, few of us are called to exercise such an influential and far reaching ministry. However we are all called to be faithful in our station to preach to the best of our ability week by week and we leave the rest to the LORD.

iii) Not every sermon is useless, see above. The most discouraging thing in ministry is to think that the word is doing no work, that your sermons are nothing but 30 minute epilogs which have no effect. Yet in reality sometimes the word is working in people's lives in ways we cannot see or appreciate. People who are becoming slowly but surely changed from one degree of glory to the next.

iv) Ministry is hard work we are constantly giving of ourselves, giving of our time and our energy to serve the people of God and of course that is what we are called to do. However many people assume that what they see on Sunday is the result of five minutes work on Saturday night when the reality is that it is the result of study during the week coupled with concern for Mrs. Jones who is in hospital, Mr. Brown who has just been bereaved and a worry about so many things that happen in the church during the week.

I say this not to have some kind of pity party but until you have been there in the coal face of the ministry it is impossible to imagine the emotional burden and weight that your pastor carries round, the stress and anxiety that he is under.

v) Sunday night tea is a terrible idea...by Sunday night I am exhausted I have poured myself into preaching twice emotionally and physically I am drained, you get to the end of the service and people want to talk to you about their bunions. If I have seemed grumpy on a Sunday night this is why not because I dont care but because at that point I have no energy left.

Ministry is a great privilege, it is great to be allowed into people's lives to speak the word of God to them but what we remember above all is that we are all sinners saved by grace until Christ returns none of our churches will be perfect but until he does we strive to love one another better and to live lives worthy of the calling we have received.