Have you ever seen something so cool that you just had to tell some one? Like when you saw the new retro-style Mustang for the first time. Isn’t it awesome! I love that car! I think it was probably the coolest car this year. If you can’t really relate to this whole Mustang fever, what about the latest computer or a new movie that just came out? Or maybe you find you just can’t stop talking about your new boyfriend?
We all have those things that can get us really excited, don’t we? In Bible Work, I found that there is another set of those things altogether. Perhaps the one my roommate and I got excited about the most during our practicum was the Cross of Christ.
Sound strange? You’re right. It is! Paul, speaking of the cross and Christ crucified says, “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.” (1st Corinthians. 1:27) If you can’t identify with us here, don’t stroke out or anything. It’s okay. We naturally don’t understand the cross. It don’t make no sense. Praise God it doesn’t! That is the beauty of it all. Verse 29 tells us that He did it that way so that “no flesh should glory in His presence.”
That’s right! We’re all together on this one. The only way that this will ever make any sense to anybody is if what the next verse says is true. Verse 30 tells us that we have been given the complete package from Christ. “But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” If we are ever to understand the power of the Cross, Jesus will have to be our only wisdom. Our minds won’t make sense of it. But if the omniscient Jesus becomes our only source of wisdom, we can get excited about the cross. He explains it.
Let me illustrate just how basic we found it to be. During the first few weeks of the practicum, I focused all my energy on being able to give the lessons properly. I wrote in extra texts, looked for illustrations, and spent lots of time in preparation. But when I got to my students, I found that my excitement would vanish. They would get bored and just start answering the questions without looking for anything exciting in the texts. I couldn’t figure out what was going wrong. So I would pull out every teaching trick I knew, but nothing would work. I was just too fake. I could see it. They could see it. So I would end making a total mess of things but still fully believing that when I got the hang of it, I would be just as good at this thing as my roommate.
Finally, one morning Miguel pulled me aside and told me the secret. He took me to 1st Corinthians 8:2 and said, “Jonathan, you don’t know anything. I don’t know anything.” At that point I was beginning to despair, but he went on. “Don’t try to teach. It’s ridiculous! We don’t know anything. So how can we teach? Just study the lesson together with your student, share some things that you have found, and let the Holy Spirit teach.”
I couldn’t believe it was so simple, but I tried it anyway, and guess what! He was right! When I quit trying to teach, the pressure was off me. All I had to do was trust that God would speak through me just like He did in canvassing. The results were incredible! That fakeness vanished. Both me and my students started getting excited as we studied together. I saw smiles as I left each lesson. Sometimes we studied for several hours just digging in the scriptures completely blown away at what we were finding. And God did use me to teach. He even used them to teach me sometimes! But I could relax.
You see, the wisdom of God really is foolishness to men, but if you trust Him, He’ll show you that the wisdom of the world is the real foolishness. The question is, will we trust Him, or will we be wise in our own eyes?
“For I am determined not to know any thing among you, save, Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” (1st Corinthians 2:2
