Too Wise For God

I finally made some much-deserved time to study a Bible verse that caught my eye this morning as I flipped open the sermon pamphlet my dad had given me from last Sunday-

"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." - 1 Corinthians 1:18

I read Matthew Henry's commentary of it, and he as usual made good points:

"Christ crucified is a stumbling-block to the Jews. They could not get over it. They had a conceit that their expected Messiah was to be a great temporal prince, and therefore would never own one who made so mean an appearance in life, and died so accursed a death, for their deliverer and king. They despised him, and looked upon him as execrable, because he was hanged on a tree, and because he did not gratify them with a sign to their mind, though his divine power shone out in innumerable miracles."

 "[The Greeks] laughed at the story of a crucified Saviour, and despised the apostles’ way of telling it. They sought for wisdom. They were men of wit and reading, men that had cultivated arts and sciences, and had, for some ages, been in a manner the very mint of knowledge and learning. There was nothing in the plain doctrine of the cross to suit their taste, nor humour their vanity, nor gratify a curious and wrangling temper: they entertained it therefore with scorn and contempt. What, hope to be saved by one that could not save himself." 

Does this sound familiar to you? Much like our modern society, does it not?

The Jews to me are reminiscent of the watered-down Christians (or "Water Christians" as I call them) who have submitted to the world instead of God. The Jews back then wouldn't accept a Savior of such humble birth, who hung out with rabble, despite His many miracles that proved He was indeed the Son of God. They just wanted a magic prince cloaked in splendor.

The Greeks remind me of both atheists and some other Water Christians. Not always the same kind as above who are too vain to truly accept the Gospel, but ones who are too arrogant to, which is definitely the problem with most atheists today as well. The Greeks scorned the Savior who (supposedly) couldn't even save Himself. Why, they were so advanced in the arts, sciences, and knowledge in general. Clearly they knew better than some guy who lived simply, told his friends to give away their worldly possessions, and preached revolutionary yet simple sermons. Nothing about this plain gospel appealed to them, exactly how the anti-Jesus atheists and so-called Christians of today are, the former of whom pats themselves on the back for their religious-like faith the vague, monolithic Science deity; the latter of whom sneers at true believing Christians trying to follow the Word even when it clashes with society's opinions to do so. These worldly 'Christians' might actually have a faint belief in God or go to church to hear a nice sugar-coated sermon that doesn't challenge them to live a different life than the comfortable one they're used to, but they have no interest in serving Jesus and tackling obstacles the world throws at anyone who will do so.


These people think themselves too wise to believe in or follow God wholeheartedly. They're too good for that. They know better.

Keith Krell also made a point I'd like to quote:

"The Word of the cross is that salvation is freely granted by God's grace, not human merit or intellect. Furthermore, salvation is extended to all people. This levels the ground at the foot of the cross. Everyone comes to God through faith, based upon the work of Jesus Christ. This offends man’s pride."

Unbelievers and false Christians who shun the Gospel do not want to be equal with people they dislike (especially followers of Jesus, but this can apply to anyone). They're better than them. Those losers are lesser than they are. It also means they're no excuse to not accept God if it's free- and they don't want to. They want to worship themselves, the world, money, anything that appeals to their pride but God.

So it all just comes down to human pride getting offended. And as such, these groups will be left to perish in their own stubborn pride.

Mourn for a Confused Child's Thrown-Away Life, But Don't Blame the Wrong Parties

I'm tired of fueling the fire this issue is made up of, but I'm going to say it. The Alcorn parents had a mentally unwell child who chose to kill himself. If it didn’t happen now, those problems would’ve manifested in other ways some other time, because that very sadly is the case with those who struggle with depression or other mental illnesses. I don’t say all this without sympathy; I say it because nobody forces anyone to commit suicide, so this "If the parents had just accepted her, she wouldn't have killed herself!". That's acting like they pointed a gun at him and said, "Kill yourself, or we'll do it for me". That’s absolute nonsense to the utmost, at best, and at worst and most offensively, takes Joshua's agency away making him a helpless victim who just didn't know better (can you really get any more condescending than that?) and shifts the blame onto two people who had no part in Josh’s/Leela’s death, two people who are currently grieving their lost child on top of dealing with the flooding of hate mail and death threats from the side that, ironically, condemns them for not accepting “her” while not accepting the parents themselves.

Photo from cnn.com.

Lots of things don’t get accepted by others that you don’t end your life over, some things much worse than your parents not calling the son the mom gave birth to a girl because that’s how he feels like being called. And as his parents, whatever you think of their theological beliefs, they make the rules, and until he was a legal adult, he had to respect their decisions. Once he was a legal adult, he could have gone out and gotten surgery or anything he wanted (not that I am encouraging this idea, just stating that all he would have had to do was wait).

I also don't understand how so many people seem incapable of feeling more than one thing at once. Have we all morphed into J.M. Barrie's Tinkerbell, who was so tiny she could not hold in more than extreme emotion at a time? You can feel sorry for Joshua and still not hate on his parents. I do feel bad for him. He was confused, but at the same time, I don't excuse his choice to end the life God gave him, and especially not selfish way he chose to do it- by jumping in front of a moving truck. The poor driver might well be scarred for life and already has people blaming HIM for what happened!

Do you feel a burning desire to lat blame at someone's feet? Why not the LGBT community? They have no problem encouraging sexual immorality in young children by telling them whatever feels good is right, which is a blatant lie and just childish thinking anyway. Many of these people are also bullies themselves, though sending threats to Mr. and Mrs. Alcorn is far from being their first victims of that. They crave validation to be assured that what they're doing is right (because, again, "it feels good") and not immoral at all, and when anyone refuses to not tell them what they want to hear, they lose all sense of reason and lash out at the person, instead of just accepting their views- something the preachers of 'tolerance' claim to want themselves- or maybe even stopping to consider if that person is right not to. Feelings prevail over logic or even basic biology sometimes. Kids like Josh can't accept their fate, the fact that he was a boy born as a boy, and this leads to anger, depression, and other negative things we'd all do well to keep out of our lives if we were just honest with ourselves.

But slowly, surely, some people have started to speak out against the bullying the parents are receiving, saying that even though they think the parents were wrong, they don't deserve to be harassed. This should be seen as a little ray of light in a society where far too many embrace this “bully everyone we don’t agree with” attitude, which is just disgusting, and especially prevalent on the Internet where the LGBT community tends to reign supreme on issues. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says you don’t agree with- you do not defend or condone harassment and bullying. If you claim to just want love and tolerance and in the same breath condemn those for not agreeing with you, for not supporting your lifestyle choice, for accepting biological facts over desires, you're as bad as the people you're claiming to fight against.