Wisdom Bigger Than Our Own
Words featured in a song in the children’s video Josh and the Big Wall declare that walking around a wall looks like a pretty dumb idea.
Characters in these videos are personified as vegetables and fruit, and the singers in this scene are peas dressed as Canaanite guards with Roman helmets on their heads.
They are standing on top of the wall of Jericho and singing down to the Israelites who are portrayed as marching peas and pickles.
Josh, played by a cucumber, and his followers have told the guards that God told them to march around the wall, which would cause it to fall.
The pea-guards are not impressed or worried and tell Josh and his people to go ahead and march all they want.
Of course, in the end
of the video, the wall comes tumbling down and the pea-guards find themselves tangled in the rubble. They run off in fear and God’s forces win the battle.
Whimsical as this children’s video seems, it communicates a message: the world often sees the followers of God as unsophisticated and intellectually deficient.
A number of years ago I attended a debate between a creationist and an evolutionist. Both men had a string of academic credentials after their names and sounded very convincing.
The audience seemed to be filled with people who knew or admired one of the two men. They divided their applause equally between the two debaters.
As we filed out of the auditorium I overheard several people commenting on the stupidity of Christians.
It seemed that even the credentials and scholarly presentation of the Christian debater couldn’t convince these skeptics.
With all the world’s information available to us, we may still seem like the little veggie army marching around Jericho.
People who do not know God will probably continue to tell us our “brains are very small,” but God’s power has overcome the world.
Ultimately, though, the walls of disbelief will fall down and he will reveal himself for who he really is.
Father, thank You that your wisdom is greater than any worldly wisdom and that you give us strength to follow you even when criticized.