1 Corinthians 1:18-31
18 For the word of the cross is folly 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 the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. We have been working our way through the book of First Corinthians. Lately, we began looking at the opening section of St. Paul's letter to the church in Corinth. And he talked about how Jesus is enough for the congregation in Corinth, that when they received Jesus, they had everything, all gifts, all power, all spiritual gifts, everything they needed from God. The next section was about divisions in the church. And we talked about what it means that the church is currently divided as it is, and how Christians should approach thinking about denominations in this divided Christian world. Today, we're moving on to the next section, verses 18 through 31. And it looks at the the cross. And the question of how crazy is the cross? When the world looks at it? It looks like foolishness, like nothing worse than nothing, like the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone. But to us, it is the wisdom of God, and the power of God for our salvation. St. Paul gives us some words about what it would have looked like to the people who were there at the time to the Corinthians, their congregation would have been made up of Greeks, and Jews, right. And so he tells us the kinds of things that they saw as powerful. He says, For Jews demand signs, and Greeks seek wisdom. He asked about the debaters of the age describes the powerful and amazing people. We know enough about Greek society to know what St. Paul is talking about, at this time. And through much of Greek society, it is the the scholar, the wise person, the philosopher, who is the peak of society. You know, some of their names Plato, right? You've heard that one before. I'm sure. He is the one who said that the perfect King, the ruler was supposed to be the philosopher king. Right? The wise man who knows the truth about reality. Socrates, also, Aristotle, big names even now. You might not know people like dioxygenase, who started the school of the cynics, or Zeno, who began the school of the stoics. The stoics are making a comeback right now. Many people are recommending reading the journal of Marcus Aurelius, who was a Roman Emperor 100 years after Jesus ascended into heaven. Still following this school that would have existed at the time Paul is writing to big deal, what these these different schools of philosophy were doing, and they lasted for centuries past the founder, who made them. We know that this is a big deal in the Bible, because it talks about it. Actually, when Paul goes to Athens and acts 17, it says, now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time and nothing except telling or hearing something new. That's kind of the Palestinian way of coming to Athens and saying, What are they doing debating philosophy all day long. Jews also had expectations, the things that they thought were powerful. It wasn't the wisdom that the Greeks had, it was signs. We see that in the Gospel of Matthew when they come to Jesus, Matthew 16, verse one says, and the Pharisees and Sadducees came and to test him, they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. happens over and over again through the Bible. Show us a sign to sell what authority you have to do these things Jesus, and he almost always replies with no, you're not going to get a sign from me. I don't dance to your tune. But you can see why if you look at the Old Testament, why they would say that Deuteronomy points back to Egypt and says You saw the signs and wonders Deuteronomy 622. And the Lord showed signs and wonders great and grievous against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household before our eyes are Joel Chapter Two with this expectation, And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions, and even on the male and female servants in those days, I will pour out my spirit. Wouldn't that be a sign? Wouldn't that be a wonder? That is what they were expecting. And so anything that is powerful, anything that is good, you would see Jews expecting the miraculous to accompany it, like it did with the prophets. That was their expectation from God. And with that, we read these words, for Jews demand signs, and Greek seeks wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to the Gentiles. But to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God, for the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. And again, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing. but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Sometimes I think we, we forget how strange the cross actually is, how horrifying. It is, stripped of all of our history and tradition. One of the ways that we see this is the way that Matthew chapter 20, is interpreted. This is the story where the the mother of James and John comes to Jesus and says, Jesus, I want you to give me a favor. And he's like, What do you want me to do? She says, When you come into the kingdom, put my sons one on your right and one on your left. When you come into your kingdom, Jesus says, You don't know what you're asking. He turns to them and says, Can you drink the cup that I drink? They say yes. And he says that, then he says, It is not my place to to, to give tell you, one of my right ammonia in the left, that is for those that it is prepared for. Now, most of the time, when we talk about that, and this is how I was taught when I was young, we think we don't know who will be sitting at Jesus when He comes in his glory when he's on his glorious throne, who will be in his right and his left. We have no idea it's prepared for someone. Probably someone that we don't expect. And that is absolutely wrong. And you want to know why? Because we don't read Matthew like a book, we read it Peric up right by Peric up. But if you actually read Matthew, you know, we know exactly who is that Jesus is right and left when he comes into his kingdom. It says in Matthew 27. And over his head, they put the charge against him which read, this is Jesus, the King of the Jews. Then two robbers were crucified with Him. one on his right, one on his left. When Jesus comes in glory, and enters into His kingdom, it's already happened. His glorious throne was across his amazing crown was thorns. And his wise counselors were robbers who died next to him. Kind of weird, right? That's not a glorious throne. An amazing crown. That doesn't sound like a kingdom I want to be in. Consider what it is that we have. Right up here. Look at that thing. We've added all sorts of beautiful stuff to it right. We made it nice and smooth. This cross in front of us we added some varnish, there's a little metal and it's pretty shiny. It's big and beautiful. It fits in our architectural style so it looks really amazing. I want you to strip it of that in your mind.
Get rid of the metal That is nice and shiny and beautiful. Take off the beautiful varnish. Make it instead rough wood, cut hastily, without any thoughts of beauty, not sanded, so there's plenty of splinters on it. Now add a body right up there. Not back in Palestine right in front of you. A man with nails through his wrist, a crown of thorns on his head and blood dripping down from the arms. flowing like a river, down the center. A head bowed because he is too weak, to lift it. Feet mangled by the nails. That's something you put up in front of a group of people. Is that beautiful?
That's the God of the Christian church. Paul says, We preach Christ crucified. You can see why it would be a stumbling block for Jews, foolishness to the Gentiles. And for us, as well. It is the same for every culture that has ever come to it. Because it looks like nothing worse than nothing. But for us, this horror, this torture and death is the power of God and the wisdom of God it is salvation itself. When we look on the pain and death of Jesus Christ, we see only glory. And it has to rework what glory actually means. In our mind, Jesus is true throne is torture. His true crown bites into his flesh. And from that cross, He reigns over his church. Until the day he returns. The church he won by this holy sacrifice the church, he marks with his holy body and blood and gathers us together to receive this death for our eternal life. And he came down to do it, so that he could enter into our life so much that even when we go down into our graves, he can be there with us in death. So we can bring us through that grave to the resurrection on the last day. And it's that cross that defines the church in the here and now until Jesus returns. I found myself in a strange confluence of events lately. All of my media consumption has randomly pointed me towards the Vikings, which is really weird. I've been playing god of war on my PlayStation. It's all about a guy who goes and fights the Norse gods pretty amazing. Lots of background about tear and Loki and Thor and all that stuff. I've been listening to podcasts, about the Viking Age, just sort of randomly came up in my normal podcast feed. And of course, the North man just came out on streaming services. I watched that too. That's interesting. Looking at their perspective on Christianity. In the north, man, they had a little scene where they had Christian slaves there. And one of the guys said, they have a corpse God. Isn't that right? We have a corpse. God don't wait. Jesus who died on a cross and when they want them to go somewhere, they say come on blood drinkers. That's what the world thinks of our craziness. Right? It's baffling because it doesn't make sense. They needed a God who would go and slay people. The high purpose of their life was to go and die in battle so they could go off to valley Halla. Foolishness is this cross where you would go and die for nothing? But what about us? What about in America? If Jews seek signs if Greeks want wisdom, if Vikings want valor, what do Americans want? We want our religion to work. I think that's it right? We're a very practical people. We don't care about highfalutin theories, and book learning, right? We want our religion to do what it's supposed to do, to function in our lives. And if it doesn't work, we jettison it, and we find something that does. Right. And I think many Christians see Christianity as an instrument, towards gaining something for life. We look at our religion as instrumental in making life better. And this isn't just me talking. This is what surveys have shown. There was a book called soul searching the religious and spiritual lives of American teenagers, it came out in 2005, which means that the people they surveyed and the interviews they did, they're no longer teenagers, their parents themselves. And one of the big findings in this was everybody they interviewed, except for a vanishingly small number of people saw that religion is there to get something done for us. A 14 year old from Massachusetts, said this. I think it's just important to have a belief system, because I think it helps you what you believe is how you live. Any belief system is good, as long as you have one. It's about fulfillment. A 16 year old Catholic from Florida said, quote, the important thing in a religion is connecting yourself to the spiritual side of yourself and fulfilling that. As long as you feel fulfilled, you have a spiritual experience, and you're good to go. Right. Another one said, talked about therapy, almost, quote, it's important that it's important. Religion is not like major important, but religion can help you get through a bad day. They summed it up with this, quote, what our interviews almost never uncovered among teens, was the view that religion summons people to embrace an obedience to truth, regardless of the personal consequences or rewards. Now, these are teenagers from 15 years ago, but where do you think they learned it? That they invent it? No, we taught it to them. The problem with this, is I want you to think about those quotations and throw it up next to a Savior who died on a cross. That horror that we saw before. To have a belief system, do you need a savior? who sacrifices his life? Now, to find spiritual fulfillment? Do you need a death on a cross? Absolutely not you can find that sitting around and meditating. To get therapy. Do you need torture and death? Of course not. You can go by that. We have to be sure that we don't have an instrumental view of our Savior Jesus Christ. Is he there to cope with your problems? Is that why Jesus came? Is Jesus here to make a better society to fight a culture war? And make sure America stays a Christian nation? Is he here to establish morality for your children? Is he here to make you feel good when you leave church on Sunday? But those thoughts next to the blood of Jesus dripping down that cross. Jesus did not come to make your life better. He did not come to give you therapy or to feel good. He did not come to bring you fulfillment. He came to die for you and raise you from the dead on the last day, and call you to the cross, like him. Bless it are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely, on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. A while back, there was a series of shootings in churches, insurance companies emailed out all sorts of things that you could do lock your doors when the worship service darts, hire guards, develop a system with the police figure all these things out so you can stay safe. My Church discussed that. You know what they didn't discuss this, if only we could be found worthy of martyrdom, of proving to be true disciples who could die for his name, if only.
That's what the apostles said. When they were whipped for Jesus, they rejoice that they were counted worthy of suffering for the name. This is the foolishness of the cross. This is the craziness of a God who dies for us. And it's the power of God for your salvation, to follow someone who took up suffering, who died for you who went up onto a cross and was tortured to death so we could enter your life so you can live forever our life will look like the cross and it's the power of God for you. In Jesus name, Amen.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai