If anyone among you considers himself wise in this age,
let him become a fool, so as to become wise.
As Christians we must be willing to appear foolish in the eyes of the world. We must be willing to seem foolish even in our own estimation. Yet most of us so value the esteem of others that we cannot obey Jesus when to do so would make us seem foolish. We rationalize that we would be putting our beliefs in a bad light by seeming foolish to others. We want to avoid failures when it seems like a little bit of worldly wisdom could avert them.
The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.
There is a difference between becoming a fool for God and simple human foolishness. Foolishness for God begins with a trust in him that is greater than our trust in our own intellectual abilities or those of others. It is not simply doing dumb things recklessly. It is doing what God tells us even when it doesn't make sense to us and likely won't immediately make sense to anyone else. We're OK with calculated risks where we can suffer a short setback for an eventual positive outcome. But with this foolishness of obedience to God we may simply have to accept that we can't understand how it will work out. Instead, we trust in the one who makes all things work together for the good of those who love him (see Romans 8:28).
We must be willing to lower our nets even when it seems foolish to do so, when it seems like one more attempt will only result in one more embarrassing failure.
After he had finished speaking, he said to Simon,
“Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.”
All of our sense as fishermen may tell us there is no point to obeying. We may already be tired, having already tried all the places where the wish might be. Even our sonar fish finders may assure us there is nothing to be found. But we must trust the voice of Jesus more than any other source of information.
Simon said in reply,
“Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing,
but at your command I will lower the nets.”
This sort of foolishness is only appropriate in response to the voice of Jesus. We sometimes try to short circuit this system by putting our trust in the wisdom of humans who follow Jesus. But these, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, whether Scott Hahn or Peter Kreeft or NT Wright, can, and ultimately only intend to point toward Jesus and not to themselves.
So let no one boast about human beings
We can't become so comfortable in the wisdom of any human being that we require the understanding that they can provide before obeying Jesus. They wouldn't want that. It is true that this strips us of some level of comfort that we can have in the wisdom of even the wisest of the followers of Christ. It also strips us of the pride we can take in imagining that we have chosen the most reputable sources. But it is the only way to be sure that we can respond to Jesus when he asks us to put out into the deep and lower our nets.
Paul teaches us that we don't need the sort of self-protective shell that insists on boasting of human wisdom. This fear stems from a scarcity mindset. But what if, as Paul says, "everything belongs to you"? If the world or life or death or the present or the future already all belong to us insofar as we in turn belong to Christ, we do not in fact live in scarcity. We have abundance from the one who came to give us life in abundance (see John 10:10). We didn't gain the world by our wisdom or our works. We need not fear to lose it by the apparent foolishness to which we are called.
and I will celebrate before the Lord. I will make myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be abased in your eyes (see Second Samuel 6:21-22)
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