We Are Fools for Christ's Sake Is Written by a Clever Man

A man told me it is not the money and it is not even the work. It is a particular kind of look.

He said there are about six people in his field whose opinion he has wanted since he was twenty four. Not their friendship. Their assessment. He wants to be, in their view, one of the serious ones.

And he has worked out that what he is about to do will move him, in their internal filing, from serious to something else. Not hostile. Just a category with less weight in it.

He said the word he keeps using is unserious, and that he can already hear how it will sound when one of them says it kindly about him to somebody else.

I know that specific ache better than most, because a man who performed for a living has a very developed instrument for detecting exactly where he sits in a room.

There is a sentence Paul writes about himself that is worth reading with those six people in mind, because Paul could have out argued every one of them.

He writes it about himself, and he is not being humble

Here is the sentence.

We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised. (1 Corinthians 4:10, King James Version)

We are fools for Christ's sake. He is writing to a church that had begun ranking its teachers and priding itself on wisdom, and he is being pointed rather than modest.

And notice the pairs. Fools and wise. Weak and strong. Despised and honorable. He is listing where he sits in the estimation of people who assess these things, and he is putting himself on the wrong side of every pair.

Paul is not a man who could not have won that assessment. He was trained under Gamaliel, he argued in the Areopagus, and the letters he wrote are still being studied two thousand years later.

He knew exactly what he was giving up, because he had it.

You are able to be downgraded by people who assess things without that being a measurement of you. 1 Corinthians 4:10 has a brilliant man listing himself on the wrong side of every pair. It is His Spirit, Romans 8:16 bearing witness with our spirit, who supplies the assessment that a room's filing cannot alter.

The policy underneath it

The reason he can write that sentence without flinching is stated earlier in the same letter.

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. (1 Corinthians 1:27)

Hath chosen. Twice, and it is a stated policy rather than a consolation.

Which means the category my friend is about to be moved into is the one the recruiting was aimed at. That is not a way of making a demotion sound nice. It is what the verse says, in a letter written to people who were extremely conscious of standing.

And Paul is not pretending the assessment does not happen. He records it happening, by name, in the same letter. He simply does not treat it as the measurement that counts.

You are being moved into the category the choosing was aimed at. 1 Corinthians 1:27 says God hath chosen the foolish things and the weak things as a settled policy. It is the Holy Spirit, 1 Corinthians 12:11 dividing to every man severally as he will, who does the placing that no field's estimation overrides.

John records people who believed and would not say so

There is a verse in John that names this exact trade, and it is written with no contempt at all.

Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. (John 12:42-43)

Many believed on him. John says the belief was real before he says anything else.

Lest they should be put out of the synagogue. The cost was concrete and social and it was not imaginary. These were men with standing in a community they would have been removed from.

And then the sentence: they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. He names a preference rather than a crime, plainly, and moves on.

Nobody in that passage is called a coward. What is described is a trade, made by real people with real things to lose, and John writes it down without a single insult.

You are being described accurately rather than accused. John 12:42 records the belief before the silence and names a preference rather than a fault, and it is the same Spirit, John 15:26 who shall testify of me, who does the testifying a frightened mouth cannot manage yet.

Paul asks himself the question out loud

There is a line where Paul puts the same trade to himself as a question.

For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. (Galatians 1:10)

He does not say that wanting people's regard is wicked. He says it is a job, and that a man cannot hold two of them.

And there is one scene where he simply takes it. Standing before Festus, mid defense, the governor interrupts him:

Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad. (Acts 26:24)

A senior Roman official tells him, in front of a king, that he has lost his mind.

And Paul's reply is not wounded and it is not aggressive. He says he is not mad and that he speaks the words of truth and soberness, and then he carries straight on and appeals to Agrippa.

That is the whole posture available. Not indifference, which nobody achieves. A short reply, and then carrying on.

You are able to answer briefly and keep going. Acts 26:25 has him answering I am not mad and continuing without wounding or arguing. It is the Spirit of God, 2 Timothy 1:7 giving power and love and a sound mind, who supplies what a person cannot produce under a room's eyes.

And if the loss of a standing you have wanted since you were twenty four has begun to weigh more than a professional matter, say it out loud to a person: a counselor, a pastor you trust, or the 988 crisis line, which answers every hour there is. Being downgraded by people you admire is a real grief and it does not have to be carried in a hallway alone.