1 Corinthians 1:17-29

Christ Jesus sent me not to baptise, but to make known the word of joy, not intellectually, not with the persuasive brilliance of personality and personal influence, lest the cross of the Christ should be obliterated and ruled out. Cleverness, human wisdom, intellectual strength do not accomplish the mighty works of the Gospel. Ours is the word of the cross; it saves us; there is in it the power of God; but to those who are in the power of death and subject to its ever-increasing dominion, this word appears as folly, as an impertinence. And so the word of the Bible comes true:— “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, I will make nothing of the intelligence of those who profess to know.” (Isa 29:14.) Where is the wise, the scribe, the learned investigator of material things? God makes the wisdom of the world foolishness, forasmuch as it was in that wisdom that the world lost the knowledge of God, it was by reason of that that its eyes were closed, and lo! the wisdom of God now appearing is proclaimed as a thing foolish in the sight of that old wisdom; but the preaching of this heavenly word saves, it saves all who have faith in it, who accept it spiritually. It does not commend itself to the old thought. The Jews demand miracles and signs, the Greeks ask first and last for wisdom, but it is the crucified Christ that we preach, and that appears a fool’s message to the Greeks, and a scandal to the Jews. Think of it! God’s power, God’s wisdom, the Christ, takes on that semblance in the sight of men. But there is more wisdom in God’s foolishness than in men’s cleverness, more strength in God’s weakness than in human power. Not many wise, powerful, highly placed are found in our number. Why? Because this calling of God is not on the lines of anything which the world sets up as important. God would not have anything of the flesh to plume itself on a value of its own. Thus it was that He chose that which was weak, despised, unsupported by birth and tradition, that which in the eyes of the world had no existence at all. This He chose and by its means He dismantles all the world’s glory, leaving us faith alone.