1 Corinthians 3:16-23
16 Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in[c] you?17 God will destroy anyone who destroys this temple. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
18 Stop deceiving yourselves. If you think you are wise by this world’s standards, you need to become a fool to be truly wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As the Scriptures say,
“He traps the wise
in the snare of their own cleverness.”[d]
20 And again,
“The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise;
he knows they are worthless.”[e]
21 So don’t boast about following a particular human leader. For everything belongs to you— 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Peter,[f] or the world, or life and death, or the present and the future. Everything belongs to you,23 and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.
Stop deceiving yourselves. If you think you are wise by this world’s standards, you need to become a fool to be truly wise.
1 Cor 3:18
Today, I am on an early train to Scotland, surrounded by busy people who are all focused on their busy lives. There is a woman on the table opposite me who is typing on her laptop at a thousand miles an hour. The guy opposite has his head in a phone, playing games. A kind looking woman next to me is eating her breakfast, preparing notes for a meeting. We are surrounded by people who are doing their best to live meaningful and happy lives.
However, as I sit here with a long slow journey ahead of me, I find a longing in my heart. It is not to be more like the people around me, it is to be more like Jesus. It is to live in a different way to the world around me. I long for simplicity, depth and connection with God. The beat of my heart is to know God and to be known.
Paul describes the pursuit of faith as being like foolishness. It means moving in the opposite direction of the flows of culture. This doesn’t mean that we are naive or make rash decisions. I think about a young man (who I used to be) that would disguise selfish and impatient decisions as faith. Paul isn’t encouraging us to act as fools. He is saying that the gravity of our lives is different. The central pull of our souls is not towards what others are fighting for, it is towards heaven. Our souls long for Jesus: to know him, to become like him and to do what he did.
