The Faithfulness of God

The Foundation, God Is Faithful

Before Paul deals with the divisions he names in the very next verse, and the human wisdom he takes up all through this chapter, he lays down the one thing everything else stands on.

This is where it all begins, for the believer’s confidence is not found in what we know, what we hold, or what we can do, but in the character of God.

The lexicons give the word faithful here as pistos, trustworthy, one who keeps his word, and the word for faith in this letter as pistis, off the same root. And what I make of that, and the making is mine, is that our faith rests on His faithfulness, and our believing is only as strong as the One we lean on.

The Corinthians had utterance and knowledge, and Paul says they came behind in no gift.

And then read where Paul puts their standing.

Confirm you unto the end. Blameless in the day of our Lord. And read what Paul says in the very next breath, because he answers his own promise. GOD IS FAITHFUL. The order is Paul’s. Verse 8, then verse 9. That I read the second as the reason for the first is my reading, because he does not write a because between them.

And see what He has called us into. Fellowship, and the lexicons give the word as koinonia, fellowship, association, partnership, participation. That I say it as shared life, or having something in common, is my wording and not theirs. So we were not only called to believe on Jesus, we were called into something held together with Him.

And here is how I hold it. The what of faith, the promise, the word, the hope, receives its certainty from the Who of faith, the faithful God who gave it. So my sureness had better rest there and not in myself.

The Wisdom of God Revealed Through the Cross

Paul takes up wisdom all through this chapter, and I will let his own words set the scene. That the church itself had caught the taste for it is my reading of why he spends so long on it. The Greeks seek after wisdom. Where is the wise. The wisdom of this world. He names it again and again, so I do not have to reconstruct their city for you. He tells me what they were reaching for.

Paul chose his words. The lexicons give logos as word, statement, message. The King James renders the phrase the preaching of the cross. So it is the word of the cross, the message of it and not the wood. Foolishness is moria, what sounds absurd. Power is dunamis, given as power, might, strength. I put it as the ability to get a thing done, and that is my wording throughout this section. The King James alone carries the point without any of it. The same cross. Foolishness to them that perish, the power of God to them that are saved.

Foolishness to the one, the power of God to the other. Those are Paul’s two words in that verse, and he does not say weakness there.

The Jews require a sign. The Greeks seek after wisdom. Those are Paul’s words. I hear one as something to see and the other as something to satisfy the mind. The lexicons give that word as sophia.

And look how exactly that answers verse 22. Paul sets verse 22 and verse 23 side by side himself. The Jews require a sign, and Christ crucified is a stumblingblock to them. The Greeks seek wisdom, and it is foolishness to them. I put it as what they got.

Do you see it. Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. That is Paul’s sentence. Now here is mine. I think the wisdom they were hunting was standing in front of them the whole time. Paul does not say that. What he says is enough. Never an idea. A Person on a cross.

The Word of God Is Living

The Word of God is not simply information. Hebrews says it is living.

Quick in the King James is the old word for living, and that alone carries it. And the lexicons give the Greek behind powerful as energes, at work, active. So the Word is not a dead page.

Hebrews says the Word is living, and it says that of the Word itself. It does not make that depend on me. What does grow with continuity, and this is what I have watched, is my own understanding of it, through walking with God and staying in it over time.

The Word is our lamp, our chart, our compass, and what I have found, at the start of my walk and many years on, is that there is always more in it than I have taken out. We do not master the Word because we are educated. And that I am still learning it, and put that down to God still opening it to me, is my testimony and not these verses.

Education Has Value, But It Is Not the Source of Revelation

Let me be honest with you, for when I first began to read the Word, all my secular learning got in the way, and I could not grasp anything, it was as though the Word had an exit plan in my mind and slipped out as fast as it came in, and for that reason I rarely picked it up. But this is where I have found the faithfulness of God meeting the one who keeps coming back. That when you stick with it, God sticks with you, is what I have watched in my own life. Now here is what Paul does say, and he says it plainly.

Neither can he know them. That is Paul, not me. And what I add out of my own experience is that even holding on to it and remembering it took the faithfulness of God to do in me.

So education has its place, for I hold that the ability to learn, study, reason and speak came from God, and that He can use the training we receive. That is what I believe, and I am not resting it on the verses in this section.

The Training Ground

Moses is another example, for he had years in Pharaoh’s house and years in the wilderness. Scripture gives me both, and it does not stop and tell me God arranged the one for the other. That I read the palace and the desert as preparation is my reading.

And what I say to you is not from those two verses, it is what I believe. Your training ground is not wasted either, not even the parts that still make your flesh rebel.

The Final Foundation, Faith Rests on the Faithful God

Our understanding may grow, our knowledge may increase, our walk with God may develop, yet the foundation underneath it all never moves.

God is faithful.

We do not come to God’s Word with pride, saying, I have the ability to understand, but with humility, saying, Lord, teach me Your Word, And Paul says God gave it, and James says God gives wisdom to the one who asks. That I join the two and expect Him to open it to me is my expectation.

The Word is not merely a book we study. Hebrews calls it living. The psalm calls it a lamp and a light. Paul says faith comes by hearing it. And what I add to those three is that I hear Him in it. The foundation of it all is this.

God is faithful.

Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised, says the psalm, and Paul told the Galatians not to be weary in well doing. So keep coming to His Word, keep asking, keep leaning in, and the psalm says it this way.

From them that walk uprightly. That is how it is written, and I will not soften it into something easier. Come to Him whether in full understanding or in lack. And remember what James told us, that God giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not. He does not scold you for having to ask. So lift your heart and praise Him, for the faithful God who called you is faithful still.