The Foolishness of Gospel Preaching

The Foolishness of Gospel Preaching

“The Foolishness of Gospel Preaching”

(1 Corinthians 1:18-25)

Series: Chaos & Correction (1 Corinthians)

Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD

Henderson’s First Baptist Church, Henderson

  • Take your Bibles and join me in 1 Corinthians, chapter 1 (page 767; YouVersion).

 

A few weeks ago we began a series of messages, verse-by-verse, through the book of 1 Corinthians. The Apostle Paul is writing to a church that had largely taken her eyes off Christ, the head of the church. They had become cliquish and divisive. They had split up into various factions and groups, each group identifying with the man who had baptized them or the man whose teachings they most admired. Some said, “I am of Paul,” or, “I am of Apollos,” or, “I am of Peter.”

 

So Paul begins the letter by calling for unity in the congregation. He calls for keeping their focus upon the cross of Christ. We left off at verse 17 where Paul says, “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect” or, as many translations put it, “lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.”

 

So we read now of the message of the cross.

 

  • Please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.

 

18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

19 For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”

20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom;

23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness,

24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

 

  • Pray.

 

Introduction:

 

Recently I came across a book entitled, 20 Reasons to Abandon Christianity. For obvious reasons, I do not recommend the book! 20 Reasons to Abandon Christianity, and the author provides 20 reasons, each reason a stand-alone chapter in the book. Some of the reasons the author argues for abandoning Christianity include Christianity’s being based on fear, another reason that Christianity breeds authoritarianism, still another reason that Christianity is homophobic. Chapter 8 is entitled, “Christianity is anti-intellectual and anti-scientific.”

 

This last so-called reason is especially popular. Unbelievers frequently charge that Christianity is anti-intellectual and anti-scientific.

 

Just read online nearly any article about Christianity and you will find this charge down at the bottom in the section where online readers may add their comments. Scroll down to the bottom of the article and read the comments of those who offer their worldly wisdom as a cultural commentary on Christianity. How many comments say something like, “Only fools believe in fairy tales and stories made up by man.” Christianity is very often regarded as anti-intellectual and anti-scientific.

 

Never mind that Christians throughout history saw intellectual thought and scientific discovery as compatible with the Scriptures. Scientists largely viewed the world through the lens of Scripture. Some of history’s greatest scientists saw no conflict between science and the Bible.

 

German astronomer Johannes Kepler, for example, was a devout Lutheran who described his scientific discoveries as “thinking God’s thoughts after him.” Galileo Galilei, often called the “Father of science,” was a believer in the God of the Bible and, while coming under fire from the Catholic Church for his rightful support of Copernicus, desired to remain loyal to the church. And few people today know that Sir Isaac Newton actually wrote more on theology than he did on science.

 

But our culture today is largely dismissive of Christianity. It’s a “fool’s religion,” a religion for the uneducated, a “crutch for weak-minded people,” a “joke,” and so forth.

 

This was certainly the case in Paul’s day as he preached the Gospel in Corinth. On the one hand there were very religious people, but people for whom the plain truth of Scripture was not enough. They sought after supernatural signs and miracles from God. Their thinking was, “God, if You’re real, then You’ll do this and You’ll do that.” Sound familiar?

 

And on the other hand, there were those in Paul’s day who hailed man’s intellect and accomplishments, finding little to no use for the preaching of a crude cross and a crucified Messiah. This crowd considered followers of Jesus to be “foolish.” And does that sound familiar?

 

It is against this backdrop that Paul paints the message of the cross through the foolishness of preaching. He contrasts man’s wisdom with God’s wisdom, and calls for a focus upon Christ, the power and wisdom of God. Three actions surfacing from this passage. First:

 

I. Receive the Word of the Cross (18)

 

18 For the message (literally, “Word”) of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

 

Note how that verse divides people up into two categories: “those who are perishing” and those “who are being saved.” And Paul says to those who are perishing, dying without Christ, to those who are perishing the message of the cross is “foolishness.” To those who are lost, to the unbeliever, the notion of a Jewish man being killed on a cross to bring salvation to others is a foolish notion. And Paul contrasts that kind of thinking with the thinking of those who are saved, the Christian. Paul writes, “But to us who are being saved, the message of the cross is the power of God.”

Everyone in this room falls in one of those two categories: “those who are perishing” and “those who are being saved.” There is no other category. If you reject the word of the cross you are perishing. That is, you continue dying. The ironic reality of our lives is that while on the one hand a human being grows older from birth and we speak of its maturing and so forth, at the same time a growing human being is also growing closer to the grave. We are physically limited because we are spiritually dead. We are dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1). If nothing changes, we go on perishing. So there are those who are perishing. And to those without Christ, those who are perishing, the word of the Cross is regarded foolish because our “foolish hearts are darkened (Romans 1:21).”

 

On the other hand there are those of us in this room “who are being saved.” We are the ones for whom the cross is not regarded as foolishness. It is not because we are smarter than those who are perishing. We, too, were once dead in trespasses and sins, but God made us alive (Ephesians 2:5). God in His almighty power regenerated our hearts and opened our eyes and now we see, we receive the word of the cross. So we are described as those “who are being saved.”

 

Note the present tense here: those who are being saved. Salvation is not just a thing of the past, it is an ongoing reality in the present. If we have been saved we are also being saved. This is why it is helpful to think of our salvation in three tenses: past, present, and future. Past tense: I have been saved, Present tense: I am being saved, Future tense: I will be saved. Past, present, future. I have been saved from sin’s penalty, I am being saved from sin’s power, I will be saved from sin’s presence.

 

The only way we may be saved is to receive the message of the cross.

 

Paul says the cross “is foolishness” to those who are perishing. We may ask, “In what sense is the cross thought of as foolish? In Paul’s day the cross stood for crucifixion, an act so horrible that it was not discussed in polite company. Cicero, the Roman Philosopher, said, “The very word ‘cross’ should be far removed not only from the person of a Roman citizen but from his thoughts, his eyes and his ears.”

See, the cross was not, as one commentator puts it, “(The cross) was not yet the ‘old rugged cross’ sentimentalized in hymns, embalmed in stained-glass windows, perched on marble altars, or fashioned into gold charms (David Garland).”

 

The cross was a symbol of death, and a shameful death at that. And so the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. Receive the word of the cross. Secondly:

 

II. Rely on the Wisdom of the Cross (19-21)

 

Paul continues in verse 19:

 

19 For it is written (and what follows is a summary of Isaiah 29:14): “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”

 

The cross humbles us. The cross humiliates us. The cross destroys our prideful notions of self-achievement and self-glory. Paul asks rhetorically in verse 20:

 

20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

 

Where is the wise man? The word is sofo/ß, from which we get our word philosophy, the love of wisdom. Paul asks, “Where is the wise man?” True wisdom is not found in man but in a cross. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? That is, where is the gifted writer of religious ideas? Where is the “disputer of this age?” Where is the “Great Debater” of this age?

 

Paul is asking, “Where are the professional experts of this age?” The phrase “This age” hints at that which is here for a short time. This age is an age that is transient, fleeting, and passing away. It is perishing along with man.

 

So Paul asks, “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” And the point is, “Left to himself, man would reason that the way to God is through philosophical discourse and debate, and through the pursuit of knowledge and scholastic endeavor.” But the way to God is not through the wisdom of man, but through the wisdom of God. Verse 21:

 

21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

 

Left to himself, man reasons that the way to God is through worldly knowledge, rigorous study, and intellectual achievement. But Paul says in verse 21, “The world through wisdom did not know God.” You can’t know God through merely human knowledge, worldly smarts, and intellectual achievement.

 

This does not mean, however, that we are to dismiss human wisdom altogether. This does not mean that we are to fail to think, failing to use our noggins, you know, failing to study, failing to reason at all. Ignorance is arguably as dangerous among Christians as is an over-focus upon knowledge.

 

William Lane Craig, “Our churches are filled with Christians who are idling in intellectual neutral. As Christians, their minds are going to waste. One result of this is an immature, superficial faith. People who simply ride the roller coaster of emotional experience are cheating themselves out of a deeper and richer Christian faith by neglecting the intellectual side of that faith (Reasonable Faith).”

 

So it is not that we are to “check our minds at the door,” if you will. It’s not that we’re not supposed to think at all. Paul is not denigrating wisdom as though wisdom in and of itself were an unworthy pursuit. Paul’s point is that human wisdom is intrinsically tied to the human condition and therefore will always be a fallen kind of wisdom, an imperfect wisdom, a man-centered wisdom, an egocentric wisdom full of hubris and pride.

 

Paul warns about the wisdom of the world as a replacement for the wisdom of God.

 

In his poem, “The Rock,” T.S. Elliot, warns of an over-focus upon earthly wisdom. He writes:

 

All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,

All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,

But nearness to death no nearer to GOD.

 

It’s not that earthly knowledge is bad. It is that a focus solely upon earthly knowledge does not get us any nearer to God.

 

This seems to be at the heart of Paul’s description of those who are lost in the first chapter of Romans. Writing of those who are lost in the world, those without Christ, Paul writes in Romans 1:21-22, “Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools.”

 

This is why it is one reason why it is so easy for man to dismiss the doctrine of creation and replace it with the doctrine of evolution. “Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God…and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools.”

 

People without Christ “profess to be wise” but are in actuality “fools.” So Paul writes here in verse 21, “It pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.”

 

Salvation comes through what lost men call “foolishness.” It’s like Paul is saying, “You call this faith foolish? Well then, it pleased God through the ‘foolishness’ of the message preached to save those who believe.”

 

Someone said, “God makes wisdom foolish by making foolishness (the preaching of the cross) into wisdom.”

 

This is always God’s way so that God gets the glory rather than man. This is why Jesus, speaking of Himself and the true rest He brings to mankind, said in Matthew 11:25, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes.” So that he who boasts may boast in the Lord (1 Corinthians 1:31).

 

Receive the word of the cross, rely on the wisdom of the cross, and thirdly:

 

III. Rejoice in the Work of the Cross (22-25)

 

There were two kinds of people who lived outside the church at Corinth. They are described in verse 22 as the Jews and the Greeks. Verse 22:

 

22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom;

 

Paul says that when it comes to the Gospel, when it comes to salvation and knowing God there is a problem for both these groups of people, a problem that hinders their coming to Christ. The Jews request a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom.

 

The Jews were always looking for supernatural signs to authenticate their faith. Jesus found this in His earthly ministry. Matthew records in Matthew 12:38, Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.”

 

And we have not changed. Many in the world today say, “Give me proof.” You know, “If God does this or that then I will believe.”

 

For people like this I like to go to Matthew’s Gospel, there at the end, chapter 28, the verse just before the Great Commission, verse 17. Jesus has appeared to a great number of people, appearing in His resurrected body. And the Bible says in Matthew 28:17, “When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted.”

 

Signs from heaven do not alone make one a believer. We have everything we need to believe given to us in the Holy Bible, in the Scriptures. We read of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The Jews request a sign, and “Greeks seek after wisdom.”

And here is the other group of people in Corinth. Greeks were regarded as a cultured people who busied themselves in the higher pursuits of intellectual engagement and philosophical discussion. The great philosophers! Someone described philosophy as, “A blind man at midnight in a darkened room looking for a black cat that isn’t there!”

 

Remember how Luke described the philosophers of Athens back in Acts 17? He writes, “For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing (Acts 17:21).” That sounds just like folks today, “Give me some new kind of wisdom. I’m looking for a new way to find peace, wholeness, and wellbeing.”

 

And again, it’s not that philosophy in and of itself is bad, it is the replacing of the Gospel with philosophy, replacing the wisdom of God with the wisdom of man, replacing the message of the cross with the message of man. Paul says in verse 23:

 

23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block [ska¿ndalon, from which we get, “Scandalous.”] and to the Greeks foolishness,

 

Paul says, “We preach Christ crucified.” This is considered scandalous to the Jew. A crucified Savior, a man bearing the shame of Roman crucifixion is foolishness to those who expected a political savior, a ruler to free them from the clutches of Rome. Scandalous!

 

And to the Greeks the preaching of Christ crucified is “foolishness.” What a crazy thing to preach, the crucifixion of a Jewish man! And you say He is resurrected on the third day? Foolishness. Call it what you will, says Paul, but we preach Christ crucified. That is the message. Christ crucified. This is what we proclaim.

 

The role of a preacher is primarily that of a herald. He does not bring his own message, but he heralds the message of another. So he doesn’t worry himself with rhetorical skill and persuasion and seek the affirmation of the crowd. He preaches not his own message but the message of another, Christ crucified.

 

There is a danger in preaching, the danger that preachers may rely on their own giftedness rather than rely on the power of Christ such that “the cross of Christ should be made of no effect,” there is no power in it. We preach Christ crucified, says Paul, a message considered scandalous to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks, verse 24:

 

24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

 

Is it not remarkable that in 2,000 years of church history the church is largely unchanged? I mean, methods change over the years and sometimes the methods are very odd. I learned recently of a pastor who opened the worship service by riding a zip-line to the pulpit. It seems to me this kind of thing places the focus on the man instead of the message. The man in the pulpit is not the focus, the focus is the message of the cross.

 

Paul writes in the end of verse 24, “Christ the power and wisdom of God.” This is what really changes lives forever, the preaching of the cross–Christ the power and wisdom of God.

 

25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

 

We can spend our entire lives accumulating wisdom. We can earn an undergraduate degree, a masters degree, a doctor’s degree, a post-doctorate degree–Warren Wiersbe said, “Men are dying by degrees!” There is nothing wrong with pursuing education and attaining wisdom. In fact, education stretches the mind and sharpens one’s thinking.

 

But the wisdom that brings eternal life is not found in a classroom, but on a cross. Christ the power and wisdom of God.

 

  • Stand for prayer.

 

We often say, “The ground is level at the foot of the cross.” I’m afraid we’ve said that so much we have forgotten the power of its meaning. The ground is level at the foot of the cross. No one stands any taller–or shorter–than anyone else. There is no superiority and no inferiority among us. We are all equal. It matters not what our background, education, skin color, beauty, gender, or natural abilities. In the cross we are all in the same boat.

 

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