I find it interesting that when the Lord Jesus Christ was with His disciples following the resurrection and they were unbelieving, He began to teach them from the Scriptures concerning Himself. A great example of that is in Luke 24, where we have Christ’s appearance to the Emmaus disciples as they were going home following the resurrection. These disciples had been in Jerusalem, and they had followed all of the details of that final week in Christ’s earthly life. They knew He had been arrested and crucified. And then because they were still in Jerusalem on account of the Sabbath, they were also there on the morning of the resurrection. They even heard the report of the women who came back from the tomb. Jesus asked them why they were downcast, and they explained all these things. They said, “Well, this morning there were these women who were part of our number. They’d been to the tomb, and they came back, saying that the body wasn’t there and that there were angels informing us that He was risen from the dead.”
But they did not understand these things at all. In an unregenerate state, no eye sees, no ear hears, and no mind conceives spiritual things even though the evidence is right there in front of them. And because all their messianic expectations were crushed, they packed up their things and were on their way home. It was when they were in that state of mind—sad, discouraged, and disappointed—that Jesus drew near to them along the way.
Now if you were writing the story, what would you say at that point? I think if I was writing the story, the conversation would go something like this:
“Hi, there! Look! It’s me.”
And they would say, “Who?”
“Why, it’s me, Jesus.”
“Come on,” they would say. “You’re kidding.”
“No, it’s me. Look, my hands—there’s the holes where I was crucified. Look, my side—that’s where the spear was thrust in.”
You would think that Jesus would overcome them with the evidence of His physical presence, wouldn’t He? I mean, what better evidence could there be? But Jesus did not do anything of the sort. What do we read in the story? Jesus went to the Scriptures. He began with Moses and all the prophets, and He explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning Himself. And that is what gave them understanding. That is what convinced them, and that is what made them witnesses for Him throughout all the remainder of their lives. Afterwards, they talked about it. They said, “Oh, when He was with us, and what He did—oh, it was just a marvelous thing. He opened the Scriptures to us, and then our eyes were opened.” Eyes that before could not see were opened. And then we are told that He began to open their minds so that they could understand all the things that were written there concerning Himself.
First Corinthians was written to a group of people who were still very much a part of the culture in which they lived. The Greeks valued wisdom, and consequently these Corinthian Christians were seeking wisdom in the wrong way. This was producing all kinds of problems in the church. But Paul would say to these people, and he would say to us today, “Do you want to be wise? That’s a very good ambition. How are you going to be wise? Are you going to find wisdom in the world’s way? Oh, if you seek it that way, you’ll be thought wise by the world but you’ll be spiritually foolish. Or are you going to seek wisdom in God’s way? If that is the kind of wisdom you want, the only place where you find it is in the Bible, as God the Holy Spirit takes it, and explains it to you, and shows you how all these things relate to Jesus Christ, in whom is hid all the fullness of the knowledge of God.” May God give us grace to study His Word and to grow wise spiritually.
