God’s Word appears to be utter foolishness to those who have not been taught and thus have not been transformed by it. In reality God’s Word IS the power of God!

For the word 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 nasb)

Is God’s Word Foolishness? NEVER!

One of my sisters came to know and embrace the Bible long before I did. We had all been raised in a religion that does not view the Bible as a book possessing wisdom for the trials of everyday life.

In a recent conversation with her, she told me about a conversation she’d had years earlier with our mother, back when my sister became a Bible Christian.

My sister told me that our mother had said, “We don’t have to know those things”.

Our mother said that because she believed it. She believed it because she had been taught that way by her own mother.

Besides, the church leaders said it. And they said it so emphatically and with such authority that it never even occurred to most of us to challenge or verify the truth and accuracy of what they said.

We pictured the early church, beginning right after Jesus ascended back to heaven, as being just as it is now, with the church leaders telling us what to think.

But is that really how early Christians lived?

We can get a glimpse of early church life from the Book of Acts. Here are two examples:

The Fellowship of the Believers
⁴² And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. ⁴³ And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. ⁴⁴ And all who believed were together and had all things in common. ⁴⁵ And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. ⁴⁶ And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, ⁴⁷ praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
(Acts 2:42-47)

Did they not seem to be totally committed to the Lord? Jesus was their top priority!

¹⁰ Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. ¹¹ These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. ¹² Therefore many of them believed, and also not a few of the Greeks, prominent women as well as men.
(Acts 17:10-12 nkjv)

In this example, Luke holds those followers of Christ in high regard.:

• They were “more fair-minded” because “they received the word with all readiness”
• They “searched the Scriptures daily”.
• Why was that important? The wanted to know: “to find out whether these things were so.”
• The result? Luke states that “many of them believed”, both men and women.

But not everyone went along with that way of life.
God divides people into two groups. The first group is those for whom the principles of God’s Word are a passion, a way of life, a deeply-held conviction.
The second group of people are those for whom “spiritual belief” is an intellectual assent to a set of data. God makes little or no difference in their daily lives. They may be good at “doing church”, but their hearts are for the things of this world.

The good news is: we each get to choose our eternal destination. Throughout the Bible, God invites us: “Do not be lured away by the trappings of this world or by false religions. Instead, live in relationship with Me by applying the wisdom found in the principles of My Word.” But… who does this?

In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus shows that only one group out of four gets His message: “…those sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the Word and receive and accept and welcome it and bear fruit…” (Mark 4:20). These, according to Jesus, will be saved. The others””steadfastly rejecting the Word of God””will remain forever as they chose to live: apart from God””and thus in torment for all of eternity.

- Jan