Pride in Education

People who have graduated from Ivy League schools or other prestigious universities across the globe typically take great pride in the academic institutions in which they were taught and trained. This can easily go to one’s head! Alumni from elite institutions can become arrogant, looking down on others simply because of the school they attended. Some of the Corinthians struggled with the same type of arrogance, believing they were better than other Christians because they were educated by the esteemed Apollos. But love is humble, not proud. It understands that true wisdom and power come from God alone, the source of all human wisdom and power, who takes pleasure in revealing his wisdom to the foolish and imparting his power to the weak so that the arrogant and prideful might be brought low and the wise and the strong might be put to shame (1 Corinthians 1:26–31). If Christians are to boast in wisdom and power—whether academic or intellectual or otherwise—they must boast in the wisdom and power of God, and in Christ (1:24), who humbled himself by dying on a cross for our guilt and shame. Therefore, let us not take pride in our personal wisdom and power nor that of our educators but in the wisdom and power of God in Christ, our salvation and our redemption. For the foolishness of God is wiser than the most profound wisdom in the world, and the weakness of God is stronger than the most formidable power in the world (1:25).