I hope you will put up with me in a little foolishness. Yes, please put up with me! I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.
I do not think I am in the least inferior to those “super-apostles.” I may indeed be untrained as a speaker, but I do have knowledge. We have made this perfectly clear to you in every way. Was it a sin for me to lower myself in order to elevate you by preaching the gospel of God to you free of charge?
…I repeat: Let no one take me for a fool. But if you do, then tolerate me just as you would a fool, so that I may do a little boasting.
2 Corinthians 11: 1-7, 16 [NIV]
If you’ve ever seen King Lear you’ll know the power of the fool. The fool in art and literature is the outsider, speaking no sense and frequently looked down upon, who in fact carries more truth and wisdom in their folly than all the sophisticated people around them.
Paul tells the Corinthians that he is coming to them as a fool. He’d rather that they didn’t see him in this way, but he knows that although his message and his lifestyle seem so stupid and weak, it is Jesus’ truth and what he has been called to.
If it’s true that other Christians can think of the decisions we make for Jesus as folly, it is even more true of those who do not yet believe. Maybe more than any of the other images which Paul uses for Christian service, this articulates what the world thinks of us. Our message seems an irrelevance to the majority. How can the gospel we carry ever speak to the sophisticated, the satisfied and the oblivious?
But at the end of the play the audience knows that the fool has spoken the truth. And amazingly, in spite of our weakness and apparent folly the Gospel is still God’s power and wisdom. Power and wisdom that has changed our lives and can change the world.
Reflection: In what ways is the message of Jesus foolish to those around me? Am I ever looked upon as a fool because of my faith?
Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you that your message is power and wisdom. May I see this power and wisdom changing lives around me. Amen.
Hannah Mears
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