1st Corinthians 3:18 -22
In today’s message the Apostle Paul instructed the Corinthians that the wisdom of this age is foolishness before God. Every age in human history had its version of wisdom. The science, philosophy and religion in the age of Noah was very different than when the early apostles walked the earth. The wisdom that the world practices here in the twenty first century is different from those previous two examples. No matter where we find ourselves in history human wisdom is yet foolishness and arises from the same root.
The wisdom of this world was born in Eden. In Geneses 3:6 we read when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eye, and also good for making one wise she did eat and her husband also ate. The wisdom of humanity was born in the fall in Eden and has evolved and degraded humanity away from our original purpose in every age of man.
In 1st John 2: 16 we are told that all that is in the world the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life is not of the father but is of the world. The lust of the flesh expresses the sins of biology. Drugs, sex, slothfulness, gluttony and the like. Lust of the eye expresses sins of covetousness. Houses, cars, diamonds, money and the like. But the pride of life deals with wisdom that leads to self-importance. Later in chapter eight Paul will tell the Corinthians that wisdom puffs up.
So when we read in Geneses that the tree was good for food (John calls it the lust of the flesh), pleasing to the eye (John calls it the lust of the eye), and also good to make one wise (John calls it the pride of life), we know that the wisdom of this world is one of the original categories of sin born in Eden and is continuing to this present day.
The wisdom of humanity is rooted in sin. This should also be a warning to us. It is not our wisdom that allows us to study, understand and teach God’s word. We are only able to understand what God has revealed to us through His holy spirit. For this reason, Paul tells the Corinthians, and us, that we do not need to boast in the worldly wisdom of men. Because we are in Christ and Christ is in God we already possess all things so there is no reason to boast. We are possessors of all through the sufficiency of the work of Christ.