The Foolishness of Preaching

For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.  Where is the wise?  where is the scribe?  where is the disputer of this world?  hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?  For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

I Corinthians 1:19-21

After showing us that the wisdom is, in reality, foolishness, the Lord here gives us some insight into the way He does things.  He says “it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.”

God tried to give the world wisdom.  He gave Adam a great deal of wisdom, and Adam rebelled against Him and disobeyed Him.  He gave the Israelites a great deal of wisdom and even tried to lead them Himself, but they rejected Him and rebelled against Him time and time again.  So, he decided to use “the foolishness of preaching” to “save them that believe.”

The dictionary definition of “preaching” is this: “to publicly proclaim or teach (usually a religious message).”  When you think about what preaching is, it really does sound kind of foolish.  It would especially sound foolish to a person who does not know the Lord.  Someone stands up and tells you what a terrible person you are.  They tell you how you have failed and that some of the things you like to do are actually sin.  Who would want to hear that?  That goes against everything that the “wisdom of the world” would tell us today.

That would sound a bit like foolishness to the world.  But, as the Bible says later in this same chapter: “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.”

The Wisdom of the World

For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.  Where is the wise?  where is the scribe?  where is the disputer of this world?  hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?  For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

I Corinthians 1:19-21

Paul here gives us a reminder about the so-called wisdom of the world.  This is what God says about it: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”  That is pretty easy to understand.  The passage goes on to ask us this question: “hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?”

It is easy to look around and see people who have a great amount of “wisdom.”  There are people with high IQs.  There are people who have spent half of their lives studying one thing or another.  There are people who have too many degrees to even remember.  There are people who are “experts” in every field imaginable.

But we need to remember that, even when faced with all of the world’s “wisdom,” we know that there is a far greater source of wisdom.  We know the Lord Jesus Christ.  He has all wisdom and is willing to give us all of the wisdom we need for living.  The wisdom of the world will come to naught.  The wisdom of the Lord is eternal, everlasting wisdom.  The wisdom of the world will be made foolish.  The wisdom of the Lord is perfect.

If we are looking for wisdom, there are only two options: man’s wisdom and God’s wisdom.  Which wisdom are we following today?  Which wisdom do we put our faith in today?

The Preaching of the Cross

For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.  For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

I Corinthians 1:17-18

In this passage, Paul speaks of the “preaching of the cross” and contrasts its effect on two groups of people: “them that perish” and “us which are saved.”  These two groups look at the preaching of the cross of Christ in opposite ways.

To “them that perish,” the preaching of the cross of Christ is “foolishness.”  The unsaved, natural man can not understand the things of God.  To a person who is dead in their trespasses and sins, the whole idea of a Saviour is silliness.  The whole idea of even needing a Saviour is silliness.  They can hear the preaching of the cross of Christ and scoff at it as mere superstition.  I was just reading an article the other day in which the writer was scoffing at the ideas of God and Christianity.  But, that writer, like many others, is among the “them that perish” crowd.  They do not know the Saviour, and thus have no use for the preaching of His cross.

On the other hand, “unto us which are saved,” the preaching of the cross of Christ is “the power of God.”  To those of us who know the Lord and have accepted Him, the preaching of His cross and His gospel is the most important thing in the world.  To us, it represents the power of God to save us from our sins, the power of God to forgive us of our sins, and the power of God to help us in our daily lives.

Our attitude toward the preaching of the cross of Christ will do much to tell us where we are in our Christian lives.  What is our attitude today?

 

The Wisdom of Words

For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.  For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

I Corinthians 1:17-18

In this passage, Paul makes an interesting statement.  He says that he has been sent to preach the gospel, but “not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.”  Paul knows that he is supposed to preach the gospel, but he doesn’t want to do it simply with “the wisdom of words,” because he fears that it would make the cross of Christ “of none effect.”

We see this phenomenon all of the time today.  There are people who claim to be preachers and teachers of the gospel, but thy are so intent on being popular that they become, in effect, nothing more than motivational speakers.  Lost in their silvery tongued orations is the simple gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the power of God unto salvation.

It is easy to fall into the trap of trying to “sell” the gospel.  In our zeal to bring people to the Lord, we sometimes tend to try to use our powers of persuasion more than we use the work of the Holy Spirit.  If we are not careful, we can treat bringing someone to Christ like selling a used car.  It does not work that way.

We need to be careful to not let our delivery of the message get in the way of the message itself.  The message is the gospel.  Everything else is superfluous.  We are simply called to be witnesses of what the Lord has done.  How are we doing?

Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us (Hymn)

Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us
Dorothy Thrupp (1836)

Savior, like a shepherd lead us, much we need Thy tender care;
In Thy pleasant pastures feed us, for our use Thy folds prepare.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus! Thou hast bought us, Thine we are.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus! Thou hast bought us, Thine we are.

We are Thine, Thou dost befriend us, be the guardian of our way;
Keep Thy flock, from sin defend us, seek us when we go astray.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus! Hear, O hear us when we pray.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus! Hear, O hear us when we pray.

Thou hast promised to receive us, poor and sinful though we be;
Thou hast mercy to relieve us, grace to cleanse and power to free.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus! We will early turn to Thee.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus! We will early turn to Thee.

Early let us seek Thy favor, early let us do Thy will;
Blessed Lord and only Savior, with Thy love our bosoms fill.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus! Thou hast loved us, love us still.
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus! Thou hast loved us, love us still.

The Bible refers to God’s people many times as “sheep” and that is a very fitting description.  Sheep are not particularly smart and they are very prone to getting lost and getting themselves into trouble.  That is why we need a Shepherd.  Fortunately, we have “the Great Shepherd.”  He has promised to lead us; we only need to follow Him!

Psalm Saturday (7a)

O LORD my God, in thee do I put my trust: save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me: Lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces, while there is none to deliver.  O LORD my God, if I have done this; if there be iniquity in my hands; If I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me; ; (yea, I have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy: )  Let the enemy persecute my soul, and take it; yea, let him tread down my life upon the earth, and lay mine honour in the dust.  Selah.

Psalm 7:1-5

This Psalm starts out with the Psalmist declaring that He is going to put his trust in the Lord: “O LORD my God, in thee do I put my trust…”  That is a good place to put your trust and it is good to let others know where you are putting your trust.  We all know that the Lord is where we should put our trust.  And we put our trust in Him because of the next part of the verse: “save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me…”

That is what the Psalmist wanted and expected when he put his trust in the Lord, and that is what we should want and expect when we put our trust in the Lord.  We want the Lord to save us from those that persecute us.  Sometimes that might be another person.  Sometimes it might be (more often than not) ourselves.  (We are very often our own worst enemy)  And sometimes it might be the Devil himself.  Whoever it is, if we put our trust in the Lord, He will deliver us!  What a wonderful Saviour!

Divisions and Contentions

For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.  Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.  Is Christ divided?  was Paul crucified for you?  or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?  I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius; Lest any should say that I had baptized in mine own name.

I Corinthians 1:11-15

The Christians at Corinth were having some problems.  They had some divisions and contentions among themselves and Paul was, in this passage, trying to set them straight.  It seems that the main source of their problems was their desire to follow or identify themselves with various men.  “I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.”  They had divided themselves into various “camps” and, apparently, each “camp” looked down at the others.

Obviously, this is ridiculous and Paul treated it as such.  He started off by asking “Is Christ divided?” and “was Paul crucified for you?”  and “were ye baptized in the name of Paul?”  Each of these questions gets an obvious “no” for an answer.  Christ is not divided – He is One.  Paul was not crucified for us, and neither was any other man that we might look up to.  No person is baptized in the name of Paul, and no person is baptized in the name of any other pastor or preacher, no matter how good they may be.

The Corinthians seemed to have developed very quickly a “cult of personality,” in which they almost started putting their human leaders on the same level as the Lord Jesus.  Sadly, Christians still have a tendency to do the same thing nearly two thousand years later.  We need to watch ourselves that we are not worshipping people, but rather that we are worshipping the Saviour!

Unity

Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.  For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.

I Corinthians 1:10-11

Paul had some things to say in the book of Romans about unity in the church, and he continues with that theme in his first letter to the Corinthians.  In this passage, he tells them that he has received word that there were contentions and divisions among them.  He encourages them to come together and have some unity.

In verse 10, he tells them to “be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.”  If you have ever been around people or dealt with people (including yourself), you can understand what a challenge these things present.  There are times in which it is difficult to get a group of people to agree on the color of the sky.  By nature, we are prideful (we want to be right all of the time), and egotistical (we think we are right all of the time).  All of us are like that.  And when you get a bunch of prideful and egotistical people together, you are going to have division and contention.  In light of that, Paul’s instructions will be hard to follow.

But then we can notice how he starts the passage: “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ…”  We are brothers and sister in Christ.  When we submit to Him, we will find ourselves becoming unified in Him.  The Bible tells us that “only by pride cometh contention.”  If we will get rid of the pride and keep our focus on Him, we will find the unity that Paul speak of here!

Enriched By Him

I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge;  Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you

I Corinthians 1:4-6

As I was reading this passage, one phrase caught my attention: “…in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge.”  We can be, and ought to be, “enriched by him.”  That sounds like a great thing, but what exactly does it mean?  The dictionary defines “enriched” as: “to improve or enhance the quality or value of…”  And that is exactly what the Lord Jesus does for us.  He improves and enhances the quality or value of everything He touches, including us.

Everything in and about our lives is enriched by knowing Jesus.  Think about all of the aspects of our lives which have been “enriched by him.”

The quality and value of our families improves when He is in control.  He gives us instructions, guidance and wisdom to know how to help our families.  He gives us grace and mercy to love and forgive our families when they do things they shouldn’t.  He enriches our families.

The quality and value of our work improves when He is in control.  When we view work as something done to glorify God instead of as a drudgery to avoided if possible, the quality and value of it is going to go up.

The quality and value of our whole lives improves with Him.  He gives us a “peace that passes all understanding.”  He gives us joy even in the difficult times.  He gives us hope when those around us have none.

Jesus Christ literally enriches everything in our lives.  We should be thankful for Him!

Wise and Simple

For your obedience is come abroad unto all men.  I am glad therefore on your behalf: but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.

Romans 16:19

Paul gives the Christians in Rome some advice here that we would be wise to consider nearly two thousand years later.  “…I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.”

“I would have you wise unto that which is good.”  We should be wise to the things that are good.  The Bible is good.  The things of the Lord are good.  Helping others is good.  Being an encouragement is good.  There are many, many things that are good.  We should be studying those things.  We should be learning more about those things.  We should be wise unto those things.

“I would have you… simple concerning evil.”  Our natural instinct is to be curious about things that we have no business being curious about.  Our flesh is naturally attracted to things that are evil and things that are taboo.  There are many things in this world that are evil.  We need to simply avoid those things.  We don’t need to learn everything about things that are evil.  We should even work to reign in our natural curiosity about those things.

Most people apply the “simple concerning evil” part of the verse to things that are blatantly evil.  But we could also apply it to “little things” like gossip.  We don’t need to know about every skeleton in every person’s closet.  We don’t need to whisper around about what “Brother or Sister So-and-So” did or didn’t do.  The Bible speaks of gossip as a sin, and, as such, it is evil.  We need to simple concerning even “little things.”

About what things are we wise and about what things are we simple?  The answer to those questions will tell us much about our spiritual walk.