In 1 Corinthians 1:22-23, Paul says God’s wisdom confuses Jews and Greeks. Jews look for miracles to validate the message and Greeks look for wisdom (for which read, rhetorical skill and eloquence). But Paul preaches Christ crucified. He speaks an on-the-face-of-it insane message without rhetorical flourish or fancy tricks.
But there are problems with that message. The Jews are offended by a crucified Messiah. They want a victorious king, not a humiliated, degraded Christ. By contrast, Greeks find the idea that God saves the world by crucifixion utterly ridiculous. It is just not reasonable. Paul insists the world finds the gospel either offensive or stupid.
However in v24, those called by God – whether Jew or Gentile – experience Jesus as the power and wisdom of God. It’s not that Paul is saying wisdom is bad; it’s that true wisdom is found in Christ and his saving power both of which are experienced by faith. Paul sums up in v25: if those who say the cross is weak and foolish are perishing but believers experience God’s saving power through it, then God at his weakest and most foolish is stronger and wiser than the world at it’s very best.
Most people push in either a Jewish or a Greek direction. Our national, ethnic and class tendencies have expectations and our personalities are also at play. Some of us want signs to validate the gospel. Other of us want intellectual certainty. But Paul says the power and wisdom of God lie in the cross. Jesus said: ‘the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’ God’s power lies in belief in that message and its implications.
As stupid as it may sound to the world, Christians know – because we’ve experienced it – that message is transformative. We’ve experienced the power and wisdom of God at work in us through a message the world thinks is mental. I’ve never seen anyone turn water into wine, walk on water or raise a person from the dead. I’ve also never heard the gospel from any of the rhetorically gifted, amazing preachers people hark back to. I heard the gospel in a place nobody has heard of, from preachers nobody knows, all of whom were low-key, unimpressive and, much of the time, frankly quite boring.
And yet I believe in the gospel.
I believe that Jesus died on the cross to pay for my sin, and I know that has transformed my life to the point where I am now – against any sort of sense – the pastor of church. No miracles. No amazing preachers I can remember. Just belief in a message that I’d heard many times, from not very gifted preachers, that has had the most transformative effect on my life. That’s the power of God at work.
That’s no cause for boasting from those preachers who, I’ve got to be honest, generally weren’t that good. And it’s no grounds for boasting in me because I came to believe a message that was delivered – at it’s very best – in a fairly pedestrian way and everybody I knew outside church thought the message was crackers. It’s clearly not to my credit that I came to believe it. But that ludicrous message, delivered in ordinary ways by unimpressive people, has changed my life so that I know I’m safe in Christ! Many other Christians could attest to something similar. This is what Paul means, I think, about the foolishness of preaching. The means is not exciting or impressive, nothing about it in and of itself would draw anybody, and yet to those who believe it is the very power of God.
The gospel message turns the world upside down. What once seemed wise, now seems foolish. What once seemed strong, now seems weak. What we might once have been impressed by we now see is no cause for boasting at all. What the world derides as foolish or offensive, we’ve found to be the very power of God at work in us. God at his weakest and most foolish is stronger and wiser than anything the world may offer us.