1 Corinthians 1:30

Human intellect seeks rest, and by nature, it seeks this rest apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. Educated people, even when converted, are inclined to view the simplicities of the cross of Christ with too little reverence and love. They are caught in the same old net that ensnared the Greeks, and they have a longing to mix philosophy with revelation.

The temptation for a person of refined thought and high education is to depart from the simple truth of Christ crucified and to invent, as it is called, a more intellectual doctrine. This led the early Christian churches into Gnosticism and bewitched them with all sorts of heresies. This is the root of Neology and the other sophisticated ideas that were once so fashionable in Germany and are now so misleading to certain classes of theologians.

Whoever you are, good reader, and whatever your education may be, if you belong to the Lord, be assured you will find no rest in philosophizing about divine truth. You may accept this doctrine from one great thinker or that dream from another profound reasoner, but these will be to the pure word of God what chaff is to the wheat.

All that reason, when best guided, can discover is merely the A B C of truth, and even that lacks certainty. In contrast, all the fullness of wisdom and knowledge is treasured up in Christ Jesus.

All attempts by Christians to be content with systems that thinkers like Unitarians and Broad-church advocates would approve of are bound to fail. True heirs of heaven must return to the grandly simple reality that makes the ploughboy’s eye flash with joy and gladdens the heart of the devout poor: Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.

Jesus satisfies the most elevated intellect when He is received with faith, but apart from Him, the mind of the regenerate finds no rest. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. A good understanding have all they that do his commandments.