The Foolishness of God

“Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”(1 Corinthians 1:25)

It often struck me as strange that the Apostle Paul would use the expression the “foolishness of God.”  I mean, what a bizarre phrase.  How can you, with any conception of God, speak of the foolishness of God?  Yet, the more I’ve learned, the more I’ve come to understand that the greatest chronicle of God’s foolishness is the best selling (though sadly, probably least read) book in history – the Bible. 

We can go through the whole Scripture, item by item by item, every example in the Scripture where God uses some strange, bizarre thing to accomplish His purpose.  I don’t really have time to go through all the instances, so the following are just a couple of my favorites:

1) Moses in the Nile

“Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “Every son who is born you are to cast into the Nile, and every daughter you are to keep alive.”
 Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a daughter of Levi.  The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was beautiful, she hid him for three months.  But when she could hide him no longer, she got him a wicker basket and covered it over with tar and pitch. Then she put the child into it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile.”(Exodus 1:22-2:3)

I had to read this account several times before I really recognized the bizarreness of this situation.  Imagine it - you’re hiding in your hut, and you have this child, right?  And, the establishment are out to get your child, and what are they gonna do with him when they find him?  They’re gonna throw him in the river to drown him.  Would you as a mother take your child and hide him?  Probably.  But would you hide him in the river?  Not likely.  What a strange idea for these parents to take this child, put him in a basket, and put him in the river.  Something strange is going on, don’t you think?  And, the question that arises for me is - how did the parents of Moses know what to do? 

We get a clue from Hebrews chapter 11 – most believers know about the so-called “hall of faith,” where it’s chronicled the great faith of the Old Testament that the writer to the Hebrews uses to make his points, sort of his summary points, but in verse 23, he makes reference to the parents of Moses:

“By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.”(Hebrews 11:23)

 Now, we can read that and fail to capture the idea.  What does Romans tell us about faith? 

“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”(Romans 10:17)

One can draw the inference from the writings of Paul in Romans chapter 10, and the writings of the writer to the Hebrews in chapter 11, that Moses’ parents did this by faith.  It isn’t a blind thing, it’s a following of instruction kind of thing.  The inference (that I draw at least - let me say it that way), is that unrecorded here in Exodus is instructions to the parents to do exactly what we’re told they did here.  And, quite frankly, that’s just God’s way, to do the highly unlikely.  Here, we find Moses being put in this basket, and being put in the river, the very place that the soldiers would be drowning the baby if they found him.  Bizarre, is it not my friend?

2) The battle plan at Jericho

“Now Jericho was tightly shut because of the sons of Israel; no one went out and no one came in.  The LORD said to Joshua, “See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and the valiant warriors.  You shall march around the city, all the men of war circling the city once. You shall do so for six days.  Also seven priests shall carry seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark; then on the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets.  It shall be that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people will go up every man straight ahead.””(Joshua 6:1-5)

Here is the city of Jericho - the stronghold of the most powerful tribe of the 7 tribes that control the land.  And they’re gonna go and march around the wall and blow trumpets? 

Wouldn’t you have loved to be with Joshua at that intelligence briefing?  You know, the spies come back with their information, and Joshua gives them this battle plan – he says “OK, boys, we’re gonna march around the city, not saying a word, we’re gonna keep our silence, once a day for 7 days, on the 7^th day we’ll march around 7 times, and then we’re gonna blow our horns and the whole thing’s gonna fall down.”  Oh really, Joshua?  This guy’s our general?  You’d think he lost his mind!

Then there’s the healing of Naaman from leprosy by washing in a muddy river 7 times, the little shepherd boy David defeating the mightiest of Philistine warriors with a rock and a slingshot, and so forth.  As I mentioned, you can go all through the Scripture, item after item, where God uses some strange, bizarre method to accomplish His purposes.

Now, I’m not sure about you, my friend, but I don’t fully understand my present situation that I’m in today – I don’t get the reasoning of it, and I sometimes don’t see what it’s accomplishing.  But it helps me to remind myself that God’s methods are not always what we would call “Orthodox,” most of the time we would regard them as foolish.  I think that’s what Paul is getting at when he talks about the foolishness of God.

And, of course, what is the ultimate foolishness of God?  What is the most absurd idea? 

That the entire universe would be saved by nailing a Galilean carpenter to a couple of wooden beams.  Crucified, on a hill in Judea, some 2000 years ago.  The preaching of the cross is to them that perish, what?  Foolishness.  How interesting it is that God’s foolishness is wiser than men, and God’s weakness is stronger than men.

Sort of a random posting, I know, but this is what was on my mind today.  Thanks for reading, my friend, and until next time – don’t drink and drive, don’t text and drive, and God bless America, it’s a beautiful country.