Now don't misunderstand; by that it is not meant that men should not boast. Not only do all men boast, but all men should boast. The question is not whether or not we should boast. The question is whether we are boasting in the right thing. So God's "foolish" work is to remove all ungodly boasting.
And all ungodly boasting is any kind of boasting that does not have God as its object. Or put another way, there is nothing any man can do to commend himself before God (1 Cor. 1:29), so the objective of the "foolish" cross is to remove any such boasting.
Most men will readily acknowledge, at least superficially, that they are prideful. But most of us do not recognize the extent of our pride and what that pride really is and looks like. John Piper has some helpful insights about our pride:
- Pride is boasting in self and not the Lord.
- Pride is taking credit ourselves for what God alone can do.
- Pride is relying on self and not God.
- Pride is feeling sufficient in our own strength and not in God's.
- Pride is the disinclination to admit that we are mere earthen vessels so another gets the glory.
- Pride is the unwillingness to admit weaknesses that may accent the power of God.
And when you combine all these "attributes," what you find is that pride is a source of confidence and trust — that which we boast about (ourselves, usually) is that which we trust. And that is why most boasting is idolatrous sin. And that is why God is so faithful to ruthlessly and "foolishness" uproot it from our lives.
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A helpful resource in understanding the concept of the cross from the eyes of Jews and Greeks is Donald Green's article, The Folly of the Cross.
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