Foolish Messengers

I am often amazed by the men and women in the Bible. They were handpicked by God Himself, called for a special purpose, for a certain time to be God’s messengers. We call them heroes, prophets, apostles, saints, and sometimes we call them holy. It is as if we forget to call them human.

The Bible unfolds the story of God choosing to use humans even 

Bonnie Piovesan

when it must have seemed foolish. When I read the stories of these messengers for myself I find a list of some very human people. They run to caves and hide, they got drunk, they were afraid, they lied to save their own skin, they manipulated, stole, murdered, were afraid of storms, and worse: they lacked faith. It is a tale of humanity bumbling around, trying to prove their self-righteousness versus God intervening and rescuing people over and over. Two things become clear right away: God is Holy, and people are human.

God loves these people we read about in the Bible, just as He loves us today. He did not handpick these fellow humans because they were better or more gifted than any of us today. God chose the weak and foolish to prove that with God all things are possible.

Here are just a few examples

• He gave 8 people a full-time job running a zoo on a boat.
• He gave a 99-year-old woman a son to fulfill a promise.
• He put a stuttering shepherd in the court of Pharaoh to prove God’s power was greater than all the gods of Egypt and to rescue His people.
• He used a prostitute to save lives.
• He put a poor foreign widow in the line of kings.
• He trained a coward to lead an army of 300 against thousands.
• He used a donkey to rebuke a prophet.
• He called fishermen to teach priests.
• He choose the sick, lame, demon-possessed, and even the dead to demonstrate His compassion.
• He used a cross to conquer sin.
• He used a tomb to conquer death.

​Not only did God choose to use humans in their weakness, He also chose to put on our humanity so He could suffer with us in every way. He Himself chose to enter into our humanity with His holiness just so he could empathize with us fully.

Some may scoff and think it so foolish that a powerful, Holy God would lower Himself to be a messenger only to be rejected and killed and then still choose to use people to spread His message of love. Yet I find such comfort in the fact that I don’t have to be rich, beautiful, wise, or perfect to be used by God. I don’t have to wait for a special calling or training to be a messenger of the Gospel. I don’t have to be holy to be forgiven. I am loved by a powerful, compassionate God who chose to understand my humanity. We will make mistakes, we will fail, and yet God still chooses to use us humans as His messengers.

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
1 Corinthians 1:17-18
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In His Name,
Bonnie