Hello, good people, and welcome to daily

bible refresh brought to you by voice of

god daily dot com. I am doctor Brad Miller here

to provide you a fresh expression of a daily

reading of the bible. We read

from we use the revised common lectionary year

c. And right now the particular lesson for this particular

day is from the epiphany season. That's the season when the wise

men came to see the baby Jesus. It's the season of the illumination

of of the star. We like to make the scriptures to be

understandable. We read it from the new testament the the new testament

lesson only from the message version of the bible. Relatable in

as much as we offer a few points to ponder to think about

regarding the scripture, and applicable, we give you an action

point. We have a prayer, and then we do all this in

10 minutes or less. Our reading for the day is from

1st Corinthians 1 18 through 31,

reading from the message. The message that points to Christ on the

cross seems like sheer silliness

to those hell bent on destruction. But for those on the way

to salvation, it makes perfect sense. This is the way

God works and the most powerful way as it turns out. It's

written. I'll turn conventional wisdom on its head.

I'll expose so called experts as shams.

So where can you find someone truly wise, truly

educated, truly intelligent in this day and age?

Hasn't god exposed at all as pretentious nonsense?

Since the world and all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it

came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight

in using what the world considered stupid, preaching

of all things, to bring those who trusted him into

the way of salvation. While Jews clamor for

miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go on on

go on for philosophical wisdom, we go right on

proclaiming Christ, the crucified. Jews treat

this like an anti miracle and Greeks pass it off as

absurd. But to us who are personally called by God

himself, both Jews and Greeks, Christ

is God's ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one.

Human wisdom is so cheap, so impotent, next to the

seemingly absurdity of God. Human strength can't

begin to compete with God's weakness. Take a

good look, my friends, at who you were when you got called

into this life. I don't see many of the brightest and

the best among you, not many influential, not many from high

society families. Isn't it obvious that God

deliberately chose men and women that the culture

overlooks and exploits and abuses?

Chose these nobodies to expose the hollow

pretentiousness of the somebodies. That is

quite, that makes it quite clear that none of you can

get by with blowing your own horn before god. Everything

that we have, right thinking and right living,

a clean slate and a fresh start comes

from God by way of Jesus Christ. That's why we have

the saying, if you're going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for

God. Great passage of scripture.

Love this one. It's really about and kind of upending

the conventional wisdom of the day when, when Paul wrote

this to the Corinthian church, and really it kind

of go it it it speaks about and

challenges our assumptions about power and wisdom and what really

matters in a spiritual journey. Let me give you a couple of

points to ponder. One of these is the radical nature of

love. Paul's discussion of the cross

as foolishness speaks a profound truth.

Now love often doesn't make sense by kind of a conventional

standard. In our world of profit margins,

power politics, choosing radical love and

solidarity with marginalized people

seems foolish. Yet this foolishness has

the power to transform the world, and the cross

represents not divine violence, but

divine solidarity with everyone who suffers

under any form of oppression. Another point.

There's a challenge here to the power structures. This

passage powerfully critiques systems

of privilege and power. Paul speaks of God choosing

those who the culture overlooks and exploits.

And really what he's doing here is highlighting an aspect of what

we sometimes call liberation theology. That is god's

preferential option for the marginalized. And this challenges

us to examine what we might be what that that we might somehow be

complicit in systems that create somebodies over

nobodies. And and it calls us really to

work towards dismantling hierarchies.

One more point, and that is about redefining what wisdom is.

What our society often considers wise often

perpetuates inequality and injustice. Divine

wisdom, however, turns this on its head. True

wisdom looks like looks like

true, more about choosing community over competition,

cooperation over domination, and enough

for everyone over excess for a few.

And I believe this passage invites us to question whose

wisdom we're following and what values truly guide

our choices. Here's your action step for the day.

Choose or think about or identify at least one way that conventional

wisdom in your life might be perpetuating harm

or inequality. Maybe it's how you spend your money.

Maybe it's what you do at work or at school or with

your family or in your community relationships. Choose

one concrete action to align more

closely with the divine wisdom. This might

may mean having a difficult conversation at the workplace

about pay equity, gender for pay equity,

or or any number of issues that may be going on at the workplace.

Or examine your own spending habits or consumption consumption habits

or or actively speaking for speaking

up for those who are marginalized by society.

Be a voice for the voiceless in your community.

We're gonna pray in just a minute, but I wanted did wanna let you know

about a resource that we have for you. I put this together a

couple years ago, and I wanna just give it to you. It's called the ABC

123 Bible study guide. And it's really

designed to make bible study, reading your bible, and applying it to your life

as easy as a b c 123.

You can find it at voice of god daily.com. It's there in the

show notes, and it's free to you. Please make use of

it. Let's pray together. Source of love

and justice, we confess we often get caught up in the world's

definitions of success and wisdom. Help us to see with new

eyes, recognize the sacred worth of those in our whom

our society often overlooks, and to find the courage

to be foolish again, to love radically and act justly.

Give us strength to challenge the systems that harm, wisdom to

see beyond conventional thinking, and hearts big enough to embrace

all your children, and may we become instruments of your

upside down kingdom For the last are first

and all are valued in the spirit of

revolutionary love. Amen.

Well, my name is doctor Brad Miller. It's been a pleasure to be with you

here on the daily Bible Refresh,

the place where we look to make the Bible applicable

and personal to your life. I'll be with you again tomorrow

morning. Remember, until then that God's love doesn't run

out. His merciful love hasn't dried

up. It's created new every morning.