As preached by Timothy O'Day.
1) God saves through the cross to shame and eliminate earthly wisdom (1:18-2:5).
2) God saves through the cross so that he alone receives glory (1:26-31).
3) God saves through the cross, so make the proclamation of the cross your focus (2:1-5).
Joyful Boasting in the Foolish Cross
1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5
#3 in a series through 1 Corinthians
Christ Fellowship Church
February 9, 2025
John Shelby Spong wrote a book called Why Christianity Must Change or Die. In that book, Spong presented how he thought Christianity needed to change in the modern age, and, as the title of the book makes clear, he thought that Christianity would not survive unless it made these changes. His ultimate aim was to “re-present” the gospel so that it aligned with contemporary views on science, history, and ethics.
In one sense, Spong’s ideas were a loving attempt. He wanted to help people embrace Jesus Christ and the gospel. But in a fuller sense, what he did was demonic in reasoning. He was in effect holding up the Bible to the world and declaring, “Did God really say…?” He wanted to help people embrace the gospel by emptying the gospel of its power to save. He won hearers and admirers, but he lost the gospel. And in losing the gospel, he lost the power of salvation.
This isn’t the first time that this has happened. Through the centuries, people have sought to make the gospel message more palatable to a world that is in rebellion with God. 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5 tells us that the Corinthians felt this same pressure to augment or change the gospel message. The Corinthians, in their attempts to be seen as superior to others, seem to have wanted to change the focus of proclaiming the gospel from the cross to an articulation that wasn’t so out of step with earthly wisdom and power. As you read through this passage, you see words like “folly, wisdom, power, and weakness” again and again. What is being contrasted is wisdom and power as defined by God and wisdom and power as defined by fallen humanity in the present earthly age. They felt the pressure to change the focus of the gospel so that they and the gospel would be accepted.
We are just as susceptible today to wanting to augment the message and emphasis of the gospel away from the cross and toward other aspects of the Christian life that seem more pleasant and palatable. We do this for two reasons
We want people to like us and think that we are reasonable, loving, and smart. In other words, we want to be perceived in a certain way by people, so we conform our speech to their expectations and desires—to what they think is wise so they think we are wise.
We want people to accept the gospel message, so we try to present it in a way that removes the offenses or less appealing parts of the gospel—namely, the cross of Christ. We do this not always by ignoring the cross, but by downplaying it.
But the gospel will never fit with earthly wisdom because earthly wisdom by definition rejects the authority of God. If we compromise on what the gospel is, then we will lose the power of God for salvation. That’s what Paul began to speak of in 1:17, saying that he does not rely on contemporary patterns of persuasion (which is what he means by words of eloquent wisdom), for if he did then the cross would be emptied of its power. In 1:18-2:5, Paul further shatters any desire that we would have of changing the gospel message to fit with earthly wisdom. Let’s walk through how he does that.
First, God saves through the cross to shame and eliminate earthly wisdom (1:18-25).
This is why the attempt to augment the gospel so that it makes sense according to the wisdom of this world is to lose the gospel. Before I jump into these verses, let me give a couple of definitions of what earthly wisdom is and what God’s wisdom is:
Earthly wisdom is a way of understanding the world and the purpose of existence by relying on human reasoning that rejects God’s Word as true and reliable.
Therefore, earthly wisdom changes. It is unstable. But it is always a ground-up understanding of life. That is, it depends on human reasoning and is defined by what makes sense to the human mind and human culture that rejects God. In Contrast…
God’s wisdom is seeing the world and the purpose of existence by relying on God’s Word as true.
While times change, God’s wisdom doesn’t.
Hopefully having these quick definitions will help you understand more of what Paul lays out in 1:18-25. Let me walk through these verses with you so that you can see that God has designed salvation in such a way as to shame and eliminate earthly wisdom.
Two Interpretations of the Cross (Effective or Ineffective)
In verse 18, Paul says that there are two interpretations of the cross when the gospel is preached. He writes,
“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.”
The message of the cross is the news that the eternal Son of God took on flesh, lived a life of perfect obedience under the law, and then suffered the punishment and curse of God when he went to the cross. Then, on the third day, he rose again from the dead. If we repent of our sins and turn toward Jesus in faith, we are redeemed from the power of sin and death and claimed by him.
When this message is proclaimed, how you receive it depends on which camp you are in. If you are being saved, you love the cross. You sing about the cross. You meditate on the cross. Why? Because it is the power of God for salvation. You know that without the cross, you cannot be saved from your sin.
But if you are in the other camp, meaning that you are on the road to destruction, the message of the cross sounds like folly. And since we have all been lost, we can understand why. A God who dies doesn’t sound very appealing at first. And we all desire to justify ourselves for, when we justify ourselves, we can be proud and think of ourselves as powerful. In short, we want to be good and powerful people by our own efforts, but a crucified God doesn’t seem powerful and it doesn’t make us look impressive. So it seems foolish when interpreted by earthly wisdom.
Why did God design salvation in such a way that many in the world would deem it to be foolish and ineffective? Paul answers that in verse 19.
Two Ways to Live (Heed or Ignore God’s Authority)
In verse 19 he writes,
“For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’”
He is quoting Isaiah 29:14. In that chapter, God is warning the inhabitants of Jerusalem that they should not be wise in their own eyes. They are defying God’s commands and he is threatening the judgment of bringing in foreign powers to attack them. In response, they do not submit to the Lord. Instead, they make an alliance with Egypt.
This is the perfect definition of earthly wisdom. They disregard God’s Word and attempt to solve problems according to a merely earth-bound understanding of issues.
In response, the Lord tells them that he will destroy their wisdom by sending judgment on them—and he does. Do you see how this connects to his present argument? Just as God showed the Israelite leaders that their brand of wisdom was utter folly by sending judgment on them despite their best efforts, God is now doing the same thing to human wisdom with the cross of Christ.
When God designed salvation to take place by our putting trust in the crucified and risen Savior, he did it knowing that it would come across as foolishness to those who are discipled by the world. It isn’t as though God could not foresee the fact those who live by worldly wisdom would at first glance count the gospel as foolishness; he actually designed it that way. One of his goals is to shame worldly wisdom and show it to be false.
He wants to display the fact that every form of wisdom that originates with man instead of God will only leave people condemned and hopeless. No wisdom is powerful enough to save except God’s wisdom. This is what Paul is getting at in verse 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?”
What he means by all of these rhetorical questions is that there is no one philosophical system of worldly wisdom that unites everyone. There is no wise man, or scribe, or debater that everyone is able to line up behind and say, “He is right!” Why is that the case? Because worldly wisdom is not built on truth. It is built on shifting preference. It is led by fallen people, corrupted by sin, who cannot help but put their own preferences and self-interest first.
God determined from the beginning that people would not know him through earthly wisdom but through his revealed wisdom—which Paul calls the folly of what Christians preach. This is what he is saying in verse 21,
“For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through (earthly) wisdom, it pleased God through the (what is perceived) folly of what we preach to save those who believe.”
God determined that salvation would come down from him instead of being something that we figured out and earned on our own. And he did this so we would abandon self-reliance.
How the Shaming of Earthly Wisdom Plays Out
Verses 22-24 tell us how the shaming of earthly wisdom plays out in real-time.
“For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
As we preach the gospel as God has given it, not trying to make it fit with worldly expectations and preferences, there are two primary results.
First, there is mockery and disdain of the message. Jews hear about the cross of Christ and they see it as a stumbling block. They demand that the Messiah be a person of power that fits a worldly definition of power. The Messiah is supposed to be a conquering king who triumphs over the enemies of Israel! He will throw out the Romans and establish a kingdom that fits a worldly definition of a kingdom. But Jesus said that his Kingdom was not of this world. And, instead of conquering Rome, he was crucified by the Romans. Conquering by being crucified does not fit with a worldly understanding of power, so the cross becomes a stumbling block for Jews.
The Greeks demand wisdom, but the preaching of Christ crucified doesn’t fit with wisdom. This wasn’t just because of a rational roadblock. There was a social roadblock as well. Crucifixion was such a horrendous form of death that those in the Roman world—including the Greeks who were absorbed into Rome—did not even speak of crucifixion in polite company. It was a form of death reserved for the worst of criminals or the lowest of slaves. A dignified, respectable, and wise person didn’t get crucified. So when you hear the message of the cross as a Greek, you are scandalized by the fact that you are being called to follow as Lord one who was crucified. How could the Son of God suffer such a fate? If you have a worldly understanding of wisdom, then that will be nearly impossible to swallow.
But there is another response. As we proclaim this message that doesn’t fit with worldly wisdom, God will call some to himself through the preaching of the cross that the world calls folly. He will call both Jews and Greeks. The reason they will respond differently is because the message of the cross is powerful and effective to draw in those who belong to the Lord. Instead of the cross being a stumbling block, those who belong to the Lord will hear the message and see Jesus Christ not as a fool but as the glorious Savior. They will see Jesus himself as the power of God and the wisdom of God.
God saves by what the world calls foolishness. But since the message of the cross really does save, verse 25 says that the (seeming) foolishness of God is wiser than man, and the (seeming) weakness of God is stronger than man. Why is this Paul’s conclusion in verse 25? Because this message that is called foolishness by worldly wisdom is the only message that can reconcile sinners to God; it does what worldly wisdom can never do.
So Don’t Acclimate the Gospel to Worldly Wisdom
The takeaway of all this is simple: do not give in to the pressure to acclimate the gospel to be more palatable to those who live by worldly wisdom. God’s plan is to show that what the world calls wisdom is really folly. If we try to make the gospel seem more acceptable by fitting it into the tenets of worldly wisdom, then we lose the power of God for salvation.
But the message of salvation is not only contrary to worldly expectation; those who are saved are not those you would expect, which is our second point.
Second, God saves through the cross so that he alone receives glory (1:26-31)
The cross is meant to save us and to shame the wisdom of the world. In the same way, the cross shames those who cling to the wisdom and power of the world by saving people that the world calls nobodies.
According to worldly standards, the church is full of mostly nobodies. That’s what Paul is pointing out in verse 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.”
Take notice of the fact that Paul is stressing that they were not counted as wise, powerful, or of noble birth according to worldly standards. The world looks at us and says, “They aren’t that important or valuable.” And knowing that we aren’t that important to the world according to a worldly standard of wisdom can nudge us in the direction of seeking worldly recognition. It can make us want to shift our proclamation of the gospel so that others in the world say, “Actually, most Christians are idiots, but that one is smart. He’s a somebody.” When the world says that about you, you feel like you have something to boast about. You’re somebody according to the world.
But it is preciously because we are nobodies that God wants to be merciful to us in Christ. As we see in verse 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; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are.”
When he says, “Things that are not,” he means that those who God chooses are so disregarded by the world as being unimpressive that they are treated as if they do not exist.
And why did God choose us? Not because we are impressive, but in order to shame those who stand before him and say that they are impressive.
As such, those in the church, cannot boast. We cannot say, “I’m actually kind of a big deal, so it makes sense why God chose me.” As we come to the cross and see our lowness by the fact that the Son of God had to go to the cross, we do not boast in ourselves. Instead, we receive salvation as a gift and thus boast in Christ and in Christ alone, as we read in verse 29, God saves through the cross and not through our wisdom and power “so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” That is to say, no one can take any credit; you can only give credit to God.
Adopted By God
Think of your salvation like adoption. When a child is adopted, that child doesn’t just say one day, “You know what, I will be adopted today.” Families do not have to adopt. Not all children who need parents are adopted. So when children are adopted, they are not adopted by their will. Rather, they are adopted because of the goodwill and love of parents who want to give children a home. Once adopted, that child cannot boast and say, “It is because I was so self-sufficient that my parents adopted me. On the contrary. The child can truly say, “It is because I was so needy and helpless that I was adopted.”
This reversal of status that the adopted child goes through is a gift given to him. When he comes into a new family, he becomes part of that family. He shares a home with the family, is called by the family's name, and is associated with the honors and the wealth of that family.
In the same way, when God adopts us into his family by the power of the cross, our status is changed from being nobodies according to the world to children of God.
Look down at verse 30. It is because of God adopting you that “you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” Now don’t miss what this means. It is because of the cross of Christ that, as you unite to Jesus by faith, you receive all the benefits that he has earned by going to the cross. As you are united to Christ by faith, you have wisdom from God because his Spirit dwells in you; you are counted as righteous and therefore have a right standing with God; you are sanctified, meaning that you are counted as holy and can draw near to God; and you are redeemed, meaning you are free from the bondage of sin—both the guilt and the power of sin.
The same pleasure that the Father has when he looks at Jesus Christ, he has when he looks at you. That is the power of the cross.
As you dwell on this, you cannot call the cross folly. It is God’s power. And dwelling on the cross then leads us to boast, as it says in verse 31, in the Lord. We boast in what we enjoy and what we think to be the greatest delight. When we remember the cross, we cannot help but boast in the Lord. We cannot boast in our own achievement. No pride in self can exist as long as we are at the foot of the cross.
Which is why we need to preach the cross and focus on making the glory of God known, which leads us to our third point.
Third, God saves through the cross so make the proclamation of the cross your focus (2:1-5)
After looking at the Corinthians themselves, Paul now uses himself as an example. He points out in 2:1-5 that he did not come to Corinth in order to display his skills in rhetoric so that he could win the favor and applause of people. He came with one purpose: preach Christ crucified.
He didn’t use lofty speech or worldly forms of wisdom because he wanted to simply preach Christ and him crucified. He did not use manipulative tactics, as he says in verse 4. Instead, he relied on the Spirit to draw people in as he preached the cross; this was the demonstration of the Spirit and the power (effectiveness) of the cross to save. What Paul is saying is that he preached the cross and trusted the Spirit to draw people to himself through the preaching of the gospel message.
As you can probably tell by this letter, Paul is not against careful argument. What he is against is the use of manipulative rhetoric. He is against rhetoric as competitive performance that disregards truth and instead focuses on winning the argument no matter what one has to say. He is against rhetoric as a means of ambitious gain.
He isn’t looking for applause, approval, or increased status through his preaching.
His goal of sharing the gospel is not to get people thinking well of him; he wants them to think truly about Jesus Christ. This is an important concept to grasp: the goal is not to get a person to accept Christ; the goal is to rightly and faithfully present the gospel so that the Spirit can move on the person because the gospel message, not you, is the power of salvation. And when the Spirit moves, we will say “The message of the cross is the power of God for salvation, not me.”
What is Your Focus?
Paul’s focus was on speaking and communicating the message of the cross well and thoughtfully. He was not focused on what people thought of him. So why was he fearful and trembling as it says in verse 3? It wasn’t stage fright and fear of what people would think of him. He was burdened to speak the truth and to honor Christ.
In other words, Jesus was his primary audience. Who do you aim to please as you share the gospel? Who's opinion matters to you? Who do you want to call you wise?
Brothers and sisters, don’t aim to convince people; aim to faithfully and rigorously proclaim what is true as if God is your audience.
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