Sermon

1 Corinthians 1:18–2:5 — The Foolishness of the Cross

January 5, 2002

In this passage Paul says that the core of the Christian message, the preaching of what God has done in Jesus on the cross, is foolishness (moria) to those who are not saved, but to those who are saved it is the power (dynamis) and the wisdom (sophia) of God. It all comes down to that. Is the message of the cross foolishness to us or is it the wisdom of God revealed before our eyes?

In v. 18 Paul begins with the assertion that the message (logos) of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. Now there is a real sense in which all of us are perishing. Our lives are wasting away. As we grow older we become more aware of this as we deal with our various aches and pains, but the truth is that even the youngest baby in the nursery is in the process of dying. But Paul is talking here of those who are not just physically perishing but of those who are, more importantly, spiritually perishing.

Paul speaks truth. Those who are not believers cannot understand the cross. It does not make sense. They will say that it makes God look bloodthirsty to think that he would require the death of his Son on the cross to satisfy the demands of his wrath. What kind of loving God is this? Many today can tolerate the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount, but not the Jesus of Golgotha.

But, Paul says, to those “who are being saved” (note that salvation is a process: we have been saved; we are being saved; and we will be saved), it is “the power of God.”

I love the way Paul can divide all humanity into two categories. Not Jew and Gentile. Not Democrat or Republican. Not men and women. But those who see the cross as foolishness and those who see it as the power of God. That is the great dividing line in life!

In v. 19 Paul quotes Isaiah 29:14 to remind us that this is no “Johnny-come-lately” strategy that God has chosen but it has been his intention from of old. His ways are beyond our ways. His purposes are inscrutable to us unless he chooses to reveal his heart to us.

Last week when we looked at Acts 18 and read the narrative of Paul’s founding and strengthening of the church at Corinth, we saw that it was a multi-ethnic church. It was composed of both Jews and Gentiles. God glories in gathering diverse peoples together in his name. You see, they are diverse in the world’s eyes, but uniform in God’s eyes, because what they have in common is the grasping of the message of the cross. Now as we continue here in vv. 20-25, we see that God is an equal opportunity offender. There is something in the cross to bother and scandalize anyone and everyone who does not get it.

In v. 20 Paul asks “Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar (grammateus, scribe)? Where is the philosopher (suzetes, skillful debater) of this age? This tells us that there is no educational or intellectual elitism among those drawn to the cross. It is not a matter of what you know but of whom you know. What the world esteems, God considers refuse. “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world” (v. 20).

In v. 21 Paul makes the point that God chose to reveal himself not in sophisticated ideas or in complex philosophical arguments for his existence, but “God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe” (NIV; KJV: “It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.”).

What is Paul getting at here? First, he is talking about the foolishness of the primary method God chooses to save those who believe. The primary way God chooses to announce salvation in Jesus is not through the social ministry of the church or the music ministry of the church or fellowship of the church or the prayer life of the church. Though all those things are extremely valuable. The primary method is preaching.

When you think about it, preaching is a strange thing. That we gather week after week and listen as someone tries to speak to us of the things of God from his Word.

It is a method that is fraught with danger. The weakness of the messenger can derail the message. We’ve all heard of the little boy who was leaving the church and as he shook the hand of the Pastor he put a dollar bill in his palm. “What is this?” the preacher asked. “I thought you might need it,” said the body, “since every Sunday at dinner my Father says you’re such a poor preacher.” The great Baptist seminary professor A. T. Robertson once said that one of the greatest proofs of the truth of the gospel is that it has advanced despite so much poor preaching.

Every few years it seems there are those who announce the demise of preaching. We are told that this is the MTV generation. That the image has eclipsed the spoken word. That our attention spans grow shorter and that no one wants to sit and listen to a talking head. Even in the church we jest about the length of sermons. Some have wanted to shorten the time for preaching, to spice it up with audio-visual enhancement, video clips and power point bedazzlement or replace it with drama or liturgical movement. Some have demoted preaching and made it peripheral in the service of worship and placed singing or even the Lord’s Supper in its place. When we talk about worship sometimes it seems that all we talk about is musical styles.

But what of preaching? Mark Twain once quipped that news of his death had been greatly exaggerated, and we might say the same of preaching. For all its pitfalls, preaching remains. God’s people still hunger for it. God still calls men to do it, despite their weaknesses or maybe because of it. Why? Because it is the means God has chosen.

In his book, The Church, Ed Clowney has this great statement about the modern use drama in worship:

”In NT times, drama was staged in the major centres of the Hellenistic world and was immensely popular. The apostles, however, delivered the urgent gospel message in direct teaching and preaching, not through indirect communication of dramatic performance. We recognize the need for direct communication in situations of supreme seriousness. An American President would not air a dramatic skit to appeal for national support in a declaration of war” (127).

Paul says in Romans 10:14 (KJV): “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” In v. 17 he says, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

So God has ordained the risky means of preaching to save those who believe. But what is central is not merely the means of preaching, but, more importantly, the content of the preaching. This is what is so very important. It is not just the means but the message.

The message is clear in v. 22: “But we preach Christ crucified.” The first and last word the church has been entrusted with by God for the world is not how we can bring peace and justice to the human structures of this age. It is not how we can have better marriages and successful well-adjusted children. It is not how we can be good citizens. It is not how we can be good and productive members of the community. We preach Christ crucified. Our message is first and last is the cross. It is that we are desperate sinners deserving of the wrath of God who are being saved from the destruction we rightly deserve, only because of what God has chosen to do for us in Jesus his Son on the cross of Calvary.

In v. 23 Paul continues to tell us that if we preach the cross, we will create division. Again, the cross is an equal opportunity offender. It is “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks” (v. 23). In v. 22 Paul says that the Jews are offended, because they demand miraculous signs. You see they expected the Messiah to come in power. How could they accept a crucified Messiah? On the other hand, the Greeks look for wisdom (v. 22). The late Greek philosophers had a very high view of the nature of God. For Aristotle God was the “Unmoved Mover.” God was the first Cause. Christians have rightly borrowed many concepts from these philosophers to describe the God of the Bible in his transcendent sovereignty. But there comes a point where Greek wisdom fails, because it cannot grasp the cross where God’s very being is moved by the death of the Son. God’s heart breaks on the cross. The Christian message of the cross was offensive to those who desired an impassive God, just as it is to Muslims today. You see Allah cannot suffer. That is why the Koran has to come up with an explanation of Jesus not dying on the cross but being replaced by someone else. Not even God’s prophet, let alone his Son, could ever suffer there.

But again, to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, the cross is not foolishness or a scandal but “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (v. 24). Again, Paul sees no more ethnic division in Christ. There are only two types of people: those who are perishing spiritually and those who are being saved.

In vv. 26-31, Paul continues to stress the message of the cross. Another reason for its scandal is that it is not all about us, but all about God. The scandal of what God has done on the cross is that it is God-centered and not man-centered. It is not all about our heroism or skill or insight in accepting him but his grace in choosing us.

Paul addresses these Corinthians in v. 26: “Brothers, think of what you were when you were called.” That is quite a thing to call attention to. You see the church at Corinth included a people of mixed socio-economic and social status. Paul reminds them that not many of them were wise by human standards, nor influential. Not many were of noble birth.

You see there is some of the gospel in this. God delights in choosing the foolish things, the weak things, the lowly and despised things (cf. vv. 27-28). Why is that? The answer is found in v. 29: “So that no one may boast before him.” God chooses to work through the weak, because then when he achieves his purposes there is absolutely no question as to who gets the glory. God is jealous for his glory. God will not share the stage with another.

What do we mean when we say that the scandal of the cross is that it is God-centered and not man-centered? This means that salvation is God-centered rather than man-centered. We too often fall into the trap of talking about salvation as if it all depended on us. We speak of our accepting Jesus, of our asking him into our hearts, of our choosing to follow him. But look at vv. 27-28 and you see three times that Paul says “God chose.” The scandal of the cross is that God does for us there something we could not do for ourselves.

This is what we sing about in the great Easter hymn, “Man of Sorrows” when we say, “Guilty, vile and helpless we; spotless Lamb of God was He; Full atonement, can it be? Hallelujah, what a Savior!”

This is why we cannot boast. Paul wraps this up in v. 30: “It is because of him (God) that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.” Then, quoting Jeremiah 9:23 in v. 31 Paul again drives home that we, of ourselves, have no ground for boasting: “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

In the opening verses of chapter 2 Paul then begins to describe the character of his own ministry among the Corinthians. And he stresses that his ministry, indeed his whole life, has been shaped by the message of the cross.

In v. 1 Paul reminds them that he came not with eloquence or superior wisdom. We know from 2 Corinthians that some in Corinth who were challenging Paul’s authority had criticized him for not being a very eloquent speaker. Cf. 2 Cor 10:9: “For some say, ‘His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing.”

But Paul says in v. 2: “But I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” It has been said of Paul that he never got over the fact that he was saved. His ministry reflected the humble recognition that his message was all about the cross and the cross was all about God. Those whom God chooses to save and to use have nothing to boast about except the grace of God. This is why Paul says that he does not want the faith of the Corinthians to rest on his wise and persuasive words or on man’s wisdom at all but on God’s power (vv. 4-5). And that power is displayed in the suffering of Jesus on the cross and in God’s choice to save those who are weak through the foolish proclamation of that cross.

This week we heard in the news of three who, like Paul, demonstrated the power of God through weakness. All three worked at the Jibla Baptist Hospital in Yemen, a small nation on the Arabian Peninsula. The hospital has been run for some 35 years ago by the International Mission Board as a witness to the love of God. It is the only full-service hospital in the area, serving primarily the rural poor among its 40,000 patients per year. When I heard the news this week it was especially meaningful to me, because I knew several young women who had gone to serve as nurses in that hospital as Journeymen. In fact, 12 years ago Llew and I had put down service in that very hospital (I as a chaplain; she as an MK teacher) as our second choice behind going to Hungary (where we eventually went).

The news this week was that on Monday, December 30, 2002 a 35 year old man came into the hospital, seemingly cradling a sick child. Hidden in his blanket, however, was a gun, and he walked into a meeting and shot four missionaries, killing three and gravely wounding one. After his arrest the gunman said that he shot the hospital workers “to cleanse his religion and get closer to Allah.”

Kathleen Gariety, age 53, was from Wisconsin. She was a single woman who served as the hospital’s purchasing agent for ten years. She had fallen in love with Yemen and her people, so that she only returned home infrequently and when she did she collected medical supplies in her local church, Layton Baptist of Milwaukee, and association.

William Koehn was 60 and was due to retire, along with his wife Marty, in October after 25 years as hospital administrator,. His colleagues spoke of him as a gentle man with a heart for the poor. His hobby was woodworking and he made hundreds of wooden toys and shoe boxes for local orphans. He was also known for visiting those in prison in Yemen.

Martha Myers, age 57, was a obstetrician and gynecologist who had served for 25 years in Yemen. She had grown up in a physician’s home in Alabama. Her father was the retired director of the Alabama Department of Public Health. In a country where women receive little medical care, Myers had enjoyed a special ministry with women and children. She had delivered numerous babies and was responsible for immunizing hundreds of thousands of Yemeni children. A fellow doctor described her as “a radiant, relaxed Christian.”

Also injured was Donald Caswell, 49, the hospital pharmacist. His father back in Texas was quoted in the Washington Post as saying, “I’d rather they not be doing that …. I hope that he’d come home now.”

The morning of December 30 the hospital staff gathered at 6:30 am for their regular morning chapel. Ken Clezy an Australian surgeon on the staff read from Hebrews 11:4 about the faith of Abel: “By faith, he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.” Later, Clezy reflected, “About an hour later, our friends were dead…. We pray that, like Abel, they will still speak.”

I’m with Caswell’s father. Why did they go? Didn’t they know that something like this might happen? I mean it is foolishness. But wait, that is it. These knew the foolishness of the cross. See, they were not afraid of merely wasting away in this life, because they were being saved, and God had called them to be made perfect in weakness and even in sacrifice.

Jeffrey T. Riddle
Pastor, Jefferson Park Baptist Church

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Sermon

1 Corinthians 1:18–2:5 — The Foolishness of the Cross

January 5, 2002

Jeffrey T. Riddle Pastor, Jefferson Park Baptist Church

Jeffrey T. Riddle
Pastor, Jefferson Park Baptist Church