1 Corinthians 1:27
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.
I dig this verse.
I actually laughed out loud (lol'd) for real when I first read it.
It makes a lot of sense when we look at pieces of the Old Testament...
GOD: Hey Moses, take this big ol staff.
MOSES: Cool! Do I get to whack people with it??
GOD: No...but if you hold it up in the air all day, Joshua will win the battle against the Amalekites.
MOSES: ...Um, ok. I guess I'll just go...and hold it in the air...all day long...
GOD: Cool. Have fun! Oh, and bring Aaron and Hur with you, just in case, y'know, your arms get tired or anything.
(Loosely paraphrased from Exodus 17)
How silly must Moses have looked? Standing at the top of a hill, holding a staff above his head?
...But it worked.
Looking back at that verse from Corinthians: "God uses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise."
This is so we don't get big heads folks.
God could've swept down and smited (smote? smoted? whatever.) all of the Amalekites in one bolt of lightning.
Why didn't He do that? I mean, people would have been like "Whoa! God!" But He didn't. He told some guy with a speech impediment to stand on a hill holding a big stick above his head all day.
This is to show HIS power. His undeniable power.
If God always used things people think are "wise" or "cool" (which He does I'm sure), then we could always rationalize it away.
We could use OUR intellect to make sense of it.
The lightning was just a coincidence. It's Colorado. There's always weird weather here anyway.
Sometimes, God's not about making sense.
He's about being God.
Using silly things to win battles. (He can do that, since He's God and all.)
So, don't be surprised if it seems like God is doing foolish things in your life. If He starts using unexpected things to prove Himself to you.
He's just doing His thing.
And reminding you that you don't have all the answers.
But He does.
Hey! I think you'll find this interesting:
ReplyDeleteVs 12: "But moses' hands became heavy; so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. And aaron and Hur supported his hands, on one one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun."
Ok, so can you picture what this would look like? An man, holding up a rod over his head, weary, sitting on a "stone," and doing this to win a great battle! This story is a shadow of what Christ did for us on the cross. Imagine what they both probably looked like... WOW! And after the fight, Moses set up an altar and called it "The LORD is my banner," or in Hebrew, "Yahweh Nissi." Interestingly, "nissi" is more correctly translated as "sign." He called the altar the "Yahweh Sign!" Interesting that a man who looks like Jesus would on the cross would be seen as a "sign" of the Lord! Also, "stone" in Hebrew is "eben," and it is a contracted word. "Ab" means father and "ben" means son. So here Moses sat... relying on the Father and Son, sybolically representing the "sign of Yahweh" and saving the Israelites from a fierce fight! God is awesome.