To answer your good question, let’s read 1 Corinthians 3:18-20, “Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.”

The wisdom of this world is so deceptive.  It makes men think they are superior and fills them with pride.  The wisdom of this world causes people to rely upon their own intelligence and reject the wisdom that is of God.  The Apostle Paul wrote back in 1 Corinthians 1:19-21, “For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God THE WORLD BY WISDOM KNEW NOT GOD, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.”  The wisdom of this world cannot find and understand God…it will only reject Him.

To be truly wise, one must “become a fool” in the eyes of the world.  Faith is so contrary to what the world views as true knowledge.  Where the world says, “Seeing is believing.”  Faith says, “Believing is seeing.”  To understand and believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we cannot look to worldly wisdom.  We learn in 1 Corinthians 2:14, “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”  That which is of God, simply cannot be accepted and believed by the natural or worldly mind.  It is spiritually discerned…and that comes from the Lord. 

FOR IT IS WRITTEN – To make his point, Paul quotes from two Old Testament books.  First, he quotes from Job 5:13, “He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong.”  We are so thankful for the knowledge the Lord has given man in the fields of science, medicine, mathematics, etc. but when men seek to attain knowledge apart from the knowledge of God, it is to their own destruction.  The craftiness and counsel of the unsaved (the world) is brought to naught.  Next, Paul quotes from Psalm 94:11, “The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity.”  The thoughts or reasonings of the wise (man) are vain.  That means they are empty or profitless.  Proverbs 16:25 warns us, “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” 

May we learn from these verses.  To seek after only ‘wisdom of this world’ is deceive yourself.  True knowledge and wisdom come from the Lord.  Man is able to use their knowledge to create many useful products in the world.  Things such as cars, airplanes, the Internet.  Man is able to make great advances in the sciences, but all this knowledge “is foolishness with God.” 

True wisdom comes from “the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”  (2 Timothy 3:15).  What about you, dear reader?  Do you have that wisdom that comes from the Lord and His Word?  Are you ‘wise unto salvation’?  Have you put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as your sin bearer and savior?  If you have not, I encourage you right now, to bow your heart to the Lord Jesus and trust in Him for your eternal salvation.  (CC)  (517.2)