Claiming To Be Wise, They Became Fools

Paul warned the Romans that natural man's rejection of God makes us futile in our thinking and foolish in our hearts (Rom 1:21). So Jude's short letter is written expressly with false teachers in mind. He urges believers to "contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints" (Jude 1:3) because of false teachers. In his description of these teachers he includes this: "These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit" (Jude 1:19). Note that "worldly-minded."

The truth is there isn't one of us that isn't, to some extent or another, worldly-minded. It's our environment, our surroundings, our pot (Remember the "frog in the pot" thing?). We don't even notice it. Consider. Prior to the second half of the 20th century most people considered contraception a bad thing. Certainly Christians did. Today, we're baffled by this. What changed? The 1960's brought a sexual revolution, and, obviously, a real danger of "free love" is unwanted pregnancy, so, since abstinence was the alternative, contraception became first a necessary evil and then an expected norm. Consider. Scripture routinely commands us to love God and love one another. Our world defines love as "warm affection." How does that even make sense? Why would God command us to have warm affection for God and our neighbors? How do we choose to drum that up in ourselves? That's because Scripture describes love differently than we do (1 Cor 13:4-8), and we seem to miss it. Consider. For most of history the majority view has been patriarchal. Still is today. But the 20th century brought us feminism which brought us radical feminism which has given us "toxic masculinity" where everything masculine is evil and women ought to rule the world. Worldly thinking. But it isn't biblical thinking. Yet, even in the church a majority today believe that God's design -- "Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ" (1 Cor 11:3) -- is wrong. Consider. Prior to the 1970's in the U.S., divorce was exceedingly rare. Enter "no fault divorce" and we're floating around (ostensibly) at 50%. Why? Worldly thinking. And it's not just in the world; it's in the church. Many churches today will not abide Paul's "I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet" (1 Tim 2:12-15) because of worldly thinking. The list goes on and on and, sadly, we Christians are barely aware of it.

Jude warns that judgment is coming on these kinds of people. God is coming with His forces "to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him" (Jude 1:15). Do you see a trend in that warning? They are ungodly, the polar opposite of godly. Godliness is right living as produced and defined by a right relationship with God ... in direct opposition to "worldly-minded." Our pursuit ought not to be to think like the world thinks because we know that the mind set on the flesh is hostile to God (Rom 8:7). Our pursuit ought to be "building yourselves up on your most holy faith" (Jude 1:20-21). "Wordly-minded" is not an asset; it's a threat. We need to weed it out everywhere we find it ... in ourselves. Of course, the only way to do that is to expect it and to recognize it.