Sunday Sermons
Revealed to Infants
“I praise You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight” (Luke 10:21).
Someone might read the above verse and be tempted to think that God is against the use of the mind or educating oneself, yet the Bible often exalts and praises the gaining of wisdom (Proverbs 8:11); learning and mediating upon Scripture (Psalm 119:97; 2 Timothy 2:15); loving God with your “mind” (Mark 12:30); being prudent and understanding (Ephesians 5:15,17), and the sorry consequences of lacking knowledge (Hosea 4:6); the fact that people who hate knowledge are fools (Proverbs 1:22); and that zeal without knowledge is useless (Romans 10:1-2). On the other hand, the Bible equally addresses warnings against a false knowledge, a knowledge that makes a person arrogant (1 Corinthians 8:1); a wisdom that rejects the gospel message and is unable to discover God (1 Corinthians 1:19,21); a “science” that is not true science (1 Timothy 6:20); a wisdom that is earthly, natural, and demonic (James 3:15).
False Knowledge
In the 20th century, especially in Western civilization, we have seen the triumph of pragmatism and subjectivism. “Subjectivism says that the mind is useful as a means of justifying my subjective desires. Pragmatism says that the mind is useful as a means of making things work. Missing from both views is the reality of objective truth. Which of my desires should be justified in view of truth? What things ought to be made to work in view of truth? The mind was designed, not to defend what I want, but to discover what is ultimately true, which should shape our wants and satisfy them more deeply with God. The purpose of the mind is not to rationalize subjective preferences, but to recognize objective reality and to help the heart revel in God” (The Pleasures of God, Piper p. 261).
The Two Wisdoms
From the above verses and passages such as James 3:13-18 it is clear that there are two “wisdoms” that operate in our world. One is an unaided human wisdom; another is the wisdom that comes from following God and trusting His word. “We may say then that a fundamental difference between divine wisdom and human wisdom is that God’s wisdom exalts what the cross stands for, and human wisdom is offended by what the cross stands for” (Piper p. 276). (1 Corinthians 1:23-24). The cross stands for, on the one hand, human sin and rebellion and helplessness (Romans 5:6), and on the other hand, God’s love, mercy, and inflexible justice (Romans 3:25-26). “In other words, what offends human wisdom about the cross is that it humbles man and exalts God. It makes humans look dependent and helpless and infantlike, and makes God look all-sufficient and all-providing” (Piper p. 276). The cross equally offends people because it removes all human boasting (1 Corinthians 1:29).
“Therefore, we may conclude that the ultimate difference between divine wisdom and human wisdom is this: God’s wisdom has the supremacy of God’s glory as the beginning, middle, and end of it, but man’s wisdom delights in seeing himself as resourceful, self-sufficient, self-determining, and not utterly dependent upon God” (p. 278).
True wisdom embraces all reality
We see this played out in the book of Ecclesiastes where human wisdom refuses to accept any heavenly realities, that is, any reality beyond the Sun (Ecclesiastes 1:3). In such a worldview the predictable outcome is often depression, fatalism, apathy, bitterness, frustration, and a wasted life (2:11). In contrast, true wisdom embraces all of reality, and instead of apathetically saying that in the end nothing matters, the Christian realizes that everything matters, every word and deed matters! (12:13-14). “Another way to say it is that divine wisdom is true wisdom because it takes all of reality into account in proportion to the importance and value of that reality. When God is not at the beginning, middle, and end of our mental labor, we are not thinking wisely, but foolishly” (Piper p. 278). Likewise, Solomon noted, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7). “Foolishness is the failure to think and act in accord with all reality. Foolishness refuses to embrace crucial aspects of reality that make a huge difference” (p. 278). Or, as the Psalmist noted, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 14:1). The Holy Spirit noted, “fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:7). The verse is not teaching that fools hate to read or despise education and learning, but that fools reject all learning that is true wisdom, that is, learning that keeps God at the center. “The foolishness of fools is deceit” (Proverbs 14:8). “That is, they will not deal with reality, but build their lives on a mirage and spend their mental efforts trying to persuade themselves it is real. The essence of folly is turning from God as the trustworthy touchstone of all reality and instead making their own preferences the measure of what is real, “He who trusts in his own heart is a fool” (Proverbs 28:26)” (Piper p. 278).
The Infants
We need to remind ourselves that the “infants” in Luke 10:21 are not one-year-olds, but in the context they are humble disciples(10:16-17,20, 23 “turning to the disciples, He said privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see’”). Equally, neither are the infants in the context people who revel in being ignorant and uneducated. God does not put a premium on remaining naïve (Romans 16:18), nor in seeing how backwoods we can become, rather Jesus noted, “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16). The world is a rough and dangerous place; it is no place for a disciple who remains an ignoramus or simpleton. Paul adds, “In your thinking be mature” (1 Corinthians 14:20). “The contrast pointed out by the Savior is not between ‘educated’ and ‘uneducated’ but between those who imagine themselves to be wise and sensible and want to test the Gospel truths by their own intellects and to pronounce judgment according to their self-formed ideas and those who live under the profound impression that by their own insight and their own reasonings they are utterly powerless. Often ‘unlearned’ persons are in the highest degree self-opinionated in regards spiritual matters, and on the other hand some of the most learned are humble and childlike. Jesus makes the contrast, not between educated and uneducated, but between people with the wrong and self-sufficient attitude and those with the right and childlike attitude” (The Gospel of Luke, Geldenhuys, pp. 306-307). “Babes are those who can learn from any and everyone regardless of their own personal educational achievement, but who are critical enough themselves to be able to distinguish truth from error, good from bad advice, the precious from the worthless. Babes are those who are willing to judge the case on the weight of the evidence, rather than distort the evidence to suit their own preconceptions” (Fowler p. 559). “The infants are little concerned with the praises of men and the human accolades for their intellectual work (or any other kind of work). They have been so humbled by the glory of God’s grace and so satisfied by the beauty of God’s greatness and power and goodness and wisdom and justice and truth, that all their energy aims at displaying with joy this glorious God. On the other hand, where there is the dread of belittling labels (such as ‘What will people think of me?’ ‘Am I popular?’ “Which position will enable me to win the election and stay in office?’ ‘Will people think that I am cool?’) and the desire for human praise, we see the makings of ‘the wise and intelligent’” (Piper p. 300).
“You have hidden these things”
God wants everyone to be saved (2 Peter 3:9) and is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34-35). God did design the gospel message so that it would offend the proud (because arrogant people need to be challenged and rebuked), and appeal to people who are humble. God does not hide the truth from anyone, for even the arrogant “understand” what the Bible is saying, but they do not agree with it. People are not born blind to the truth, but rather if you allow yourself to become proud, then that sinful attitude will blind you to what you really need to hear. The good news is that such an attitude can be removed anytime a person wants to do what is right.
“Wise and intelligent”
This verse is not saying that unbelievers are smarter than disciples, rather it is saying that people who want to be viewed or praised as being wise and intelligent in the eyes of the world have a definite problem. The wise and intelligent are deeply committed to making man the measure of all things rather than God. Piper reminds us, “the task of all ‘Christian’ scholarship—not just biblical studies, is to study reality as a manifestation of God’s glory, to speak and write about it with accuracy, and to savor the beauty of God in it. It is a massive abdication of scholarship that so many Christians do academic work with so little reference to God. If all the universe and everything in it exist by the design of an infinite, personal God to make His manifold glory known and loved, then to treat any subject without reference to God’s glory is not scholarship, but insurrection” (Piper p. 298). What he is saying is that any subject, psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, physics, chemistry, English, and so on, needs to be studied along side the truth that we are living in God’s universe and only in that environment will a person truly understand the subject in its proper context and only then is God glorified. The Bible reminds us, that whatever we do, needs to be done with the aim of glorying our Creator, “Glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:20); “Whether then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (10:31). God then has made some specific applications into our secular careers(Ephesians 6:5 “as to Christ”; 6:7 “as to the Lord”), our marriages (Ephesians 5:22 “as to the Lord”; 5:25 “just as Christ loved the church”), and our families (6:1 “in the Lord”). Does our work ethic glorify God? Do our marriages glorify Him? Does my attitude towards my children or my obedience to my parents glorify Him?
Rigorous training of the mind
We are surrounded by so many religious groups that are operating on emotions and feelings, that people tend to forget the mental effort and diligent study that are required in the Christian life (Hebrews 5:14). The Christian does need to continue learning and one of the benefits of education is “the rigorous training of the mind, very simply, so that a person can read the Bible with understanding” (Piper p. 292). “The ability to read does not come intuitively. It must be taught. And learning to read with understanding is a lifelong labor” (p. 292).
“Well-pleasing in Your sight”
This explains the previous verse. Why did God design the gospel message so that it would offend the arrogant and draw the humble? Because it was the right thing to do! Barnes noted, “That God does a thing, is, after all, the best reason which we can have that it is right. It is a security that nothing wrong is done” (Matthew/Mark, p. 123). When someone reacts to the truth, remember, it was God’s will that a man or woman must first lay down their pride before they become a Christian. Yes, when someone rejects the gospel, it is discouraging, but the will of God is still being done! Often we think that only when a person obeys the gospel is the will of God accomplished, but every time a proud person walks away from the truth, God’s will is also being done.
