It is always fascinating to see those who consider themselves intelligent, by the world’s standards, yet are unbelievers, attempt to expound on Scripture, attempt to explain what it means, then pass judgment on whether it is even worth considering. Invariably they will make the same sort of comments, generally that Scripture, and thus “religion,” is for simple minds but those with more intelligence have moved past such childish thinking. It should be no surprise to anyone that, generally speaking, the more educated a person becomes, the less he tends to believe in God. There are exceptions of course, but this does appear to be the general condition. Surprisingly, God doesn’t seem to make any attempt to appeal to the more intellectual side of human nature. As Paul tells us, God specifically chooses the foolish things, the weak things, the base things, the despised things to confound the world, its so-called wisdom, and its ideas of what is right and good. Why does he do this? He does it so that nobody can take the credit for “figuring” it out, so that nobody can stand before God and claim they had anything to do with their salvation. It is all God. No matter how hard we try, no matter how hard we think, no matter how much we wish, we cannot contribute anything to our salvation. It is solely by the grace of God that we have any hope at all. The world absolutely hates this. The world can’t stand the idea that all their efforts are for nothing. The world desperately needs to think that it is making progress, that it is making a difference. If not, it has nothing to hope for. We can see this in some of the worldly philosophical ideas that have cropped up in the past couple centuries, systems that understand the world has no hope, that all its efforts are for nothing and therefore it doesn’t matter what anyone does, so they might as well, “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” This is one of the reasons why suicide rates are so high, why there are so many mental health problems today. Without hope, man is rudderless. The world desperately needs Jesus yet for the most part refuses to accept him simply because they think his way is foolishness when in reality, the world’s way is the most foolish way of all.