DAY 1:

Reading Time: 7 minutes

INTRODUCTION:

At work, we are sometimes faced with difficult decisions where the path is not clear and the context is not black and white. These circumstances and the way in which we form decisions in the midst of them have consequences for us, our families, our coworkers, and perhaps even our organizations. How can God lead us through these challenging choices?

After the resurrection, Jesus says that it is better that He leaves His disciples (John 16:7) so that He can send the Spirit in His stead. Despite the seemingly unhelpful departure of Jesus, His Spirit is an invaluable gift to all believers as He is the one who brings to us a greater discernment. Christian maturity requires the Spirit’s power and guidance in our lives and, especially in situations like those described above, in our work.

The Christian notion of calling is not a passive revelation of God’s will as much as it is an active engagement of our discernment through the prompting of the Holy Spirit. God places us in difficult and broken places so that we can bring the hope and power of the gospel to light. This often requires risk and perseverance; we learn to depend upon wisdom from God in knowing how to navigate our work places and in making decisions that sometimes feel like we’re stuck selecting the best of bad options.

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 2

1And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

6Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 7But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—

10these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

14The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16For,

“who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?”

But we have the mind of Christ.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. What is at the heart of Paul’s plea in this passage?

Paul is reaffirming the calling of God’s people.

In his letter, Paul is reaffirming God’s call to be vice-regents. Paul says, “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2 NIV). Here he is referencing the death, resurrection, and glory of Christ, which is the process through which God reestablishes humanity to its proper calling and place in the work of vice-regency. The resurrection was not simply the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth, but also the restoration of humanity to its original calling.

Looking back to Genesis, we see how sin has thwarted the cultural mandate, but through the work of Christ, we see the restoration of humanity, empowered by the Spirit (Ezek.37) to reestablish our place as vice-regents in the ongoing work of redemption.

Godly wisdom sets Christians apart from those with human wisdom.

Paul says, “We do…speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God’s wisdom” (1 Cor. 2:6-7 NIV). Paul’s deeper message is that human discernment alone cannot unravel or begin to understand the mysteries of God; this is only done through the revelation of God’s Spirit.

The eighteenth-century American preacher Jonathan Edwards made this same distinction in a sermon titled, “The Divine and Supernatural Light.” In it, he explains that the distinguishing feature of the Christian is the work of the Spirit. The difference is seen in the unique wisdom beyond human capabilities. This distinction is precisely what Paul is drawing attention to all throughout this passage.

How do we know if we have received wisdom from the Spirit? The difference between the two is faith; faith is not something you can conjure up through sheer force of will, nor something elicited through philosophical rhetoric. It comes purely through the power of God alone. This is what makes the gospel distinct from the wisdom of the world.

Godly wisdom is incomprehensible to nonbelievers.

Here we encounter a paradox of sorts, because the “folly” of the cross to nonbelievers is “wisdom” for Christian believers. Jesus died—He was taken down by the human rulers of His time. He didn’t win. When Christ was dying on the cross, the reasonable explanation was that He was a liar and a failure. However, the cross tells believers that things are not what they appear to be. The reality was that His magnificent defeat vindicated all His words and marked the greatest victory in all of history—the conquest of sin and death.

God’s glory is magnified, not minimized, when we think and speak of Him in terms of the crucifixion. How? “God shows that he is God…precisely in the fact that He is mighty in weakness, glorious in lowliness, living and life-giving in death.” Only God is great enough to win by losing. Only God is loving enough to love the unlovable. Only God is eternal enough to be swallowed by time and death and live to tell the tale. The cross magnifies the divine King who played the fool in order to end the folly of sin and death.

This is what sets us apart. “God…He revealed in Christ another kind of wisdom that radically subverts the wisdom of this world: God has chosen to save the world through the cross, through the shameful and powerless death of the crucified Messiah. The word of the cross, which looks like nonsense to a lost and perishing world, is the power of God for salvation to those who believe.” And we only believe through faith.

2. According to Paul, how is the spirit at work in the believer?

The Spirit empowers those who are weak.

Spiritual wisdom draws those who hear it closer to God, the true source of wisdom.

The Spirit brings needed discernment.

3. What are the implications of this passage for your work?

We must have eyes to see the Spirit at work and learn to be dependent on him.

We must spend quiet, dedicated time with the Spirit.

Henri Nouwen says,

In solitude I get rid of my scaffolding: no friends to talk with, no telephone calls to make, no meetings to attend, no music to entertain, no books to distract, just me—naked, vulnerable, weak, sinful, deprived, broken—nothing. It is this nothingness that I have to face in my solitude, a nothingness so dreadful that everything in me wants to run to my friends, my work, and my distractions so that I can forget my nothingness and make myself believe that I am worth something. The confrontation with our own frightening nothingness forces us to surrender ourselves totally and unconditionally to the Lord Jesus Christ.

We must seek godly discernment in community.

In Christian community, the body of Christ, we can partner with others who have also received God’s wisdom.

We must actively respond to difficult situations by trusting in God’s guidance.