Matthew 20:16 — So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.

I don’t remember anybody telling me, before I got saved, that Christianity doesn’t makes sense. Everywhere you look in the New Testament, though, it seems like things are backwards!
The biggest paradox, of course, is that we are sinners — but will not be held sinful … but there are so many. How about these:

I believe that there is a “master” paradox that underlies so many of these … A Christian is to be “in the world but not of the world”. It’s about how we look at things …

How do you measure success? The world measures it by the accumulation of material wealth. But we are poor …
How do you judge significance? The world judges it by visibility. But we are invisible …
How do you assess strength? The world looks at muscle, money and manpower … but we are strongest when we are weak …
What do you think love is? The world thinks it’s something that happens to you or that we fall into. We know that love is something we do …

Oh, I forgot one. When somebody wrongs you if your a Christian you get to be the one who puts it right! How does that make sense?
Are you getting the picture? Now maybe how you look at all this depends on how old you were when you got saved. I know some people who can never remember not being Christians. They’ve never looked at things any other way. But to someone like me who didn’t get with the program until my late 40’s this was turning the world on its head. Frankly, for the first year or so I kept tripping over these ideas that were the opposite of what I had previously believed. Sometimes I had to give myself a little shake and remind myself that the other way hadn’t been working that well for me!
I have learned that all these apparent paradoxes, and the many others that are in the Bible are consistent with the greatest most miraculous contradictions of all — the one that Paul describes in his letter to the Romans:

For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

That’s the miraculous contradiction that underpins the paradox that we sinners saved by grace. That’s the contradiction that defines Christian success — “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another;”
It doesn’t make sense. But isn’t it wonderful!