World's Wisdom or Grace

 DEVOTION

THE 2^ND LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS

 WORLD’S WISDOM OR GRACE

2 Cor 1:12-14

12 Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, in the holiness and sincerity that are from God. We have done so not according to worldly wisdom but according to God's grace. 13 For we do not write you anything you cannot read or understand. And I hope that, 14 as you have understood us in part, you will come to understand fully that you can boast of us just as we will boast of you in the day of the Lord Jesus.

NIV

 

It appears there are two distinct methods of conduct. The first is through the standards or the wisdom of this world and the second is by the grace of God. To conduct ourselves as the world does imply a method of cunning and perhaps even a certain amount of ruthlessness, to gain as many advancements this world has to offer. This method of conduct includes plotting and planning, perhaps even in secrecy, in order to achieve success. Paul says that he has not conducted himself according to worldly wisdom but by the grace of God. This is the way in which we should be conducting ourselves in our relationship with others, but our fellow believers as well as those of the world that we have contact with. What does it mean to conduct our lives by the grace of God? Again, we fall back on this definition of grace that means the divine influence upon our heart and how that is reflected in our life. We have to conduct ourselves according to the influence of God upon our hearts. There is nothing secret about that, and we can boast about that one thing, that which is in our heart, the influence of God if our conscience testifies to that truth. That means we must be truthful within ourselves regarding exactly how we conduct our lives. In other, words, we can live as the world does, but say that we believe in God. We can live according to the wisdom of the world and simply incorporate a form of Christianity into our lives. This may look like that idea of living in this world as though everything depends on us but saying we trust in God to gain eternal life. But if we live by the divine influence of God then we would have to say that we trust in his influence in the way we live in this world. That is we trust in his influence in areas of our life, like where we live, where we work, where we church, how we serve others, how we conduct our financial affairs, and in our relationship with people. It might even appear that our lives would be an open book, as in all we write and say, people, can understand us fully. Our lives are not a secret, nor do we conduct ourselves in secret. We should be able to boast about each other rather than about ourselves. That is the difference between the wisdom of the world and the grace of God.