Cross Power
08/23/09
1 Corinthians 1:10-25
Pastor Greg Smith
The Apostle Paul could not be accused of saying only what people wanted to hear! The gospel message that he proclaimed was amazingly effective as he went his missionary journeys through the Roman world. But the effectiveness did not come from changing the message to make it more acceptable. In 2 Corinthians 4:2 he writes,
2 Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.
Here's an example of what I mean. When Paul wanted a one word symbol that summed up the message of the Christian faith he had several choices.
Paul could have chosen the conqueror, the triumphant. This would have appealed to his Jewish audience. When Paul says in verse 22 that "Jews demand signs" he meant signs of power, signs of a triumphant Messiah who would overthrow Israel's enemies. Or it could have been broken chains to symbolize Jesus freeing people from oppression.
Paul could have chosen the symbol of Jesus the teacher. Sitting in the boat. This would have appealed those in his audience who were influence by Greek culture. Paul says in verse 22 that "Greeks look for wisdom." They wanted wisdom, insight and deep understanding to lead a meaningful and successful life. Or the golden tongue of the rhetorician.
Instead Paul settled on the cross as a symbol that summarized the gospel message. He didn't choose the most attractive alternative— indeed it was the least appealing. As he says in verse 18, "The message of the cross is foolishness [ridiculous folly] to those who are perishing."
It's not hard to see why. The message that a convicted felon was the bearer of God's forgiving and transforming love was hard enough for anybody to swallow and for some especially so.
• For Greek sophisticates it must have seemed completely absurd. What uglier, more supremely inappropriate symbol of what the great Greek philosopher Plato called the Beautiful and Good than a crucified Jew? Can you imagine wearing a little gold electric chair around your neck? A lethal injection needle?
• And for the devout Jew, what more scandalous image of the Davidic King-Messiah, before whom all the nations were at last to bow?
Paul understood both reactions well. "The foolishness of what we preach," he called it. And he knew that it was foolishness as well to the simple Corinthians that had no particular bent but simply wanted some reasonably plausible god who would stand by them when the going got rough. Paul's God didn't look much like what they were after. After all, who stood by Jesus when the going got rough?
You can understand why, then, some in the Corinthian church were playing down the cross. Why did Paul insist on it? Wouldn't he reach more people if he used some other approach?
For both Jew and Greek, and for us, the ultimate idolatry is to insist that God conform to our own prior view as to how "the God who makes sense" ought to do things. Another way to put it: Beware if you get too comfortable with your understanding of God. The God of the Bible will not be tamed or packaged for marketing.
Now we get a inkling of why Paul insists on the cross as the focus of the Christian message. "Nothing," he claims, "can replace the cross as the sum up the message of the gospel."
Why?
A genuine encounter with God is a deeply humbling experience. No part of the gospel is more humbling than the cross.
a. Intellectually humbling. Paul quotes from the prophet.
19 For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
20 Where are the wise? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
A dying Savior was so unexpected, so beyond calculation. And this is the message God has chosen. Verse 21.
For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.
b. Even more, the cross is spiritually humbling.
Nowhere do we see both the love and justice of God more clearly than in the cross of Christ.
— We who caused the death of God's Son are judged by God in the cross.
— The forgiveness we receive is not that of one that deserves or can reasonably expect to be excused, but as ones who owe all to the gracious Judge who has set them free entirely by his mercy.
At the foot of the cross the ground is level, all come by the same mercy, none can claim the right to God's grace. This was so important for the Corinthians to hear. They were taking up sides following different leaders. Paul was dismayed.
11 My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. 12 What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.”
13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so no one can say that you were baptized into my name. 16 (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.) 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
By their behavior they showed that they misunderstood the message of the cross.
The Corinthians were very competitive. Some were winners. Other were losers— that’s where competition always leads.
We want to be winners.
26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him.
Sounds like a bunch of losers to me! There seems to be a paradox in what Paul says. Losers are winners and winners are losers.
When Paul wrote his letter, he could only argue the way he does if the Corinthian church was made up mostly of those from the low end of the socio-economic scale— what society considered losers.
The critics of the Christians in the ancient world took notice of this very thing. One of the earliest was a Greek philosopher named Celsus. Here's what he wrote.
The Christians say this: "Let no one educated, no one wise, no one sensible draw near. For these abilities are thought by them to be evils. But as for anyone ignorant, anyone stupid, anyone uneducated, anyone who is a child, let that person come boldly." [Celsus continues:] By the fact that the Christians themselves admit that these people are worthy of their God, they show that they are able to convince only the foolish, dishonorable and stupid, and only slaves, women, and little children.
Paul tells us that the whole way we have been seeing ourselves and comparing ourselves is off base. We need a new perspective. According to Paul, there are two ways of looking at yourself and others: one way is "kata sarka," according to the flesh; the other is "en Christou."
I. The first way of regarding ourselves and others Paul calls "kata sarka."
"Kata sarka" = according to the flesh. "The flesh" in Paul's writings doesn't refer to our bodies but our sinful, prideful, fallen human nature. "Kata sarka" is a phrase that is translated different ways depending on the context: according to the sinful nature, according to human ways of thinking. In verse 26, "kata sarka" is translated "by human standards."
Verse 26 reads:
Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.
Paul reminds them how they were evaluated by the surrounding culture. He call the standards and point of view that the surrounding culture uses "kata sarka." It is a point of view that comes from our fallen human nature.
From the human point of view most of the Corinthians were foolish and weak, lowly and despised.
The Greek culture celebrated the beautiful, the perfect, the ideal. And religious leaders who were supposed to represent their god were to part of the beautiful people— the winners.
Paul himself didn't measure up.
1 Corinthians 2:1 And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.b 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
Paul had the rough hands of a tent maker, calluses and all. He was probably pretty beat up in his appearance.
2 Corinthians 11:24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26 I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own people, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. 27 I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.
Paul himself had to be considered one of the losers when measured by human standards of the flesh.
Of course, the Roman world was one were few could have been winners. Did you know that 1/3 of the people in the Roman empire were slaves? That another 1/3 were freed slaves. And the others were probably masters. A faith of "winners" would be just a small elite.
These weren't the folks that either Jesus or Paul appealed to.
II. The other way of regarding ourselves and others Paul calls "in Christ."
This is way of looking at ourselves which comes from a relationship with Christ. Here, again, is how Paul puts it.
God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus…
There are several things that we learn from this new perspective.
1. What was an argument against Christianity for the philosopher Celsus was the glory of the faith for Paul.
From a human perspective, the rag-tag band of Christians at Corinth was no advertisement for God's power and glory. But from the perspective given us in Christ, the same rag-tag band of Christians is a powerful testimony to God's power, grace, and glory.
Throughout the Bible God is on the side of the humble and lowly.
— The exodus in the OT is the story of how God takes a group of slaves and makes them his people.
— Think of the people surrounding the Christmas story like the shepherds.
2. This new perspective in Christ transforms my basis of self worth.
It's hard even for successful people to always be winners. There is always something that will pull us down: the lose of a job; the fact that others are much further along the road of what the world calls success than we will ever be.
And let's face it, no one escapes in the inroads of age, sickness and death itself. We're all going to lose the fight against death some day. But in Christ, I don't have to play the game of winners and losers. My worth comes from a whole different source. I like the way the NRSV puts verse 30.
He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
All the beautiful, good and ideal that the Greeks were looking for were there for them in what Christ has done. He has become for us "wisdom from God", but not in a Greek way. Instead, he has become for us "wisdom from God" in a way that makes us winners in God's eyes: Christ is our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
That last word— redemption— would have been especially important to the lowly in Corinth. This is a slavery word, in a world, remember where 2/3's were or had been slaves. The good news of the gospel is that it took what others regarded as mere property (slaves) and transformed them into human beings, even, children of God. It told people that though they may worthless in the eyes of the world that they were worth the death of God's only Son. The good news of the gospel is that losers become winners in Christ.
3. This brings us to the third thing we learn from the new perspective in Christ: Because of what Christ has done, no one can brag about being a winner before the Lord.
Let me read verses 28 and 29 from the NRSV.
28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, 29 so that no one might boast in the presence of God.
There is good news for those that know that they can't be winners forever in the eyes of the world. For all in my life that I can point to that makes me a winner, I know there is another side as well. I am a broken person in need of God's grace.
And that is exactly what Paul meant when he spoke of the lowly. It's what Jesus meant when he said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
That changes the way I see myself: all that I pointed to before that made me a winner is put into its right perspective. Before the Lord, I'm a winner because of what Christ has done and nothing more. Losers are winners in God's kingdom. That's good news for anyone who knows they need God's grace.
It also means we are freed to live what others might call a "loser's" life because we're a winner through Christ. I can be a servant, I can give my time, my career, my money, my whole life in Christ's service because I don't have to measure up to any worldly standard. Like Paul, I can be a "fool for Christ" because I'm Christ's winner and that's all that counts. God has chosen "the lowly things of this world… so that no one may boast before him."
Pastor Greg Smith
The Apostle Paul could not be accused of saying only what people wanted to hear! The gospel message that he proclaimed was amazingly effective as he went his missionary journeys through the Roman world. But the effectiveness did not come from changing the message to make it more acceptable. In 2 Corinthians 4:2 he writes,
2 Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.
Here's an example of what I mean. When Paul wanted a one word symbol that summed up the message of the Christian faith he had several choices.
Paul could have chosen the conqueror, the triumphant. This would have appealed to his Jewish audience. When Paul says in verse 22 that "Jews demand signs" he meant signs of power, signs of a triumphant Messiah who would overthrow Israel's enemies. Or it could have been broken chains to symbolize Jesus freeing people from oppression.
Paul could have chosen the symbol of Jesus the teacher. Sitting in the boat. This would have appealed those in his audience who were influence by Greek culture. Paul says in verse 22 that "Greeks look for wisdom." They wanted wisdom, insight and deep understanding to lead a meaningful and successful life. Or the golden tongue of the rhetorician.
Instead Paul settled on the cross as a symbol that summarized the gospel message. He didn't choose the most attractive alternative— indeed it was the least appealing. As he says in verse 18, "The message of the cross is foolishness [ridiculous folly] to those who are perishing."
It's not hard to see why. The message that a convicted felon was the bearer of God's forgiving and transforming love was hard enough for anybody to swallow and for some especially so.
• For Greek sophisticates it must have seemed completely absurd. What uglier, more supremely inappropriate symbol of what the great Greek philosopher Plato called the Beautiful and Good than a crucified Jew? Can you imagine wearing a little gold electric chair around your neck? A lethal injection needle?
• And for the devout Jew, what more scandalous image of the Davidic King-Messiah, before whom all the nations were at last to bow?
Paul understood both reactions well. "The foolishness of what we preach," he called it. And he knew that it was foolishness as well to the simple Corinthians that had no particular bent but simply wanted some reasonably plausible god who would stand by them when the going got rough. Paul's God didn't look much like what they were after. After all, who stood by Jesus when the going got rough?
You can understand why, then, some in the Corinthian church were playing down the cross. Why did Paul insist on it? Wouldn't he reach more people if he used some other approach?
For both Jew and Greek, and for us, the ultimate idolatry is to insist that God conform to our own prior view as to how "the God who makes sense" ought to do things. Another way to put it: Beware if you get too comfortable with your understanding of God. The God of the Bible will not be tamed or packaged for marketing.
Now we get a inkling of why Paul insists on the cross as the focus of the Christian message. "Nothing," he claims, "can replace the cross as the sum up the message of the gospel."
Why?
A genuine encounter with God is a deeply humbling experience. No part of the gospel is more humbling than the cross.
a. Intellectually humbling. Paul quotes from the prophet.
19 For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
20 Where are the wise? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
A dying Savior was so unexpected, so beyond calculation. And this is the message God has chosen. Verse 21.
For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.
b. Even more, the cross is spiritually humbling.
Nowhere do we see both the love and justice of God more clearly than in the cross of Christ.
— We who caused the death of God's Son are judged by God in the cross.
— The forgiveness we receive is not that of one that deserves or can reasonably expect to be excused, but as ones who owe all to the gracious Judge who has set them free entirely by his mercy.
At the foot of the cross the ground is level, all come by the same mercy, none can claim the right to God's grace. This was so important for the Corinthians to hear. They were taking up sides following different leaders. Paul was dismayed.
11 My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. 12 What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.”
13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so no one can say that you were baptized into my name. 16 (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.) 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
By their behavior they showed that they misunderstood the message of the cross.
The Corinthians were very competitive. Some were winners. Other were losers— that’s where competition always leads.
We want to be winners.
26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him.
Sounds like a bunch of losers to me! There seems to be a paradox in what Paul says. Losers are winners and winners are losers.
When Paul wrote his letter, he could only argue the way he does if the Corinthian church was made up mostly of those from the low end of the socio-economic scale— what society considered losers.
The critics of the Christians in the ancient world took notice of this very thing. One of the earliest was a Greek philosopher named Celsus. Here's what he wrote.
The Christians say this: "Let no one educated, no one wise, no one sensible draw near. For these abilities are thought by them to be evils. But as for anyone ignorant, anyone stupid, anyone uneducated, anyone who is a child, let that person come boldly." [Celsus continues:] By the fact that the Christians themselves admit that these people are worthy of their God, they show that they are able to convince only the foolish, dishonorable and stupid, and only slaves, women, and little children.
Paul tells us that the whole way we have been seeing ourselves and comparing ourselves is off base. We need a new perspective. According to Paul, there are two ways of looking at yourself and others: one way is "kata sarka," according to the flesh; the other is "en Christou."
I. The first way of regarding ourselves and others Paul calls "kata sarka."
"Kata sarka" = according to the flesh. "The flesh" in Paul's writings doesn't refer to our bodies but our sinful, prideful, fallen human nature. "Kata sarka" is a phrase that is translated different ways depending on the context: according to the sinful nature, according to human ways of thinking. In verse 26, "kata sarka" is translated "by human standards."
Verse 26 reads:
Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.
Paul reminds them how they were evaluated by the surrounding culture. He call the standards and point of view that the surrounding culture uses "kata sarka." It is a point of view that comes from our fallen human nature.
From the human point of view most of the Corinthians were foolish and weak, lowly and despised.
The Greek culture celebrated the beautiful, the perfect, the ideal. And religious leaders who were supposed to represent their god were to part of the beautiful people— the winners.
Paul himself didn't measure up.
1 Corinthians 2:1 And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.b 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
Paul had the rough hands of a tent maker, calluses and all. He was probably pretty beat up in his appearance.
2 Corinthians 11:24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26 I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own people, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. 27 I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.
Paul himself had to be considered one of the losers when measured by human standards of the flesh.
Of course, the Roman world was one were few could have been winners. Did you know that 1/3 of the people in the Roman empire were slaves? That another 1/3 were freed slaves. And the others were probably masters. A faith of "winners" would be just a small elite.
These weren't the folks that either Jesus or Paul appealed to.
II. The other way of regarding ourselves and others Paul calls "in Christ."
This is way of looking at ourselves which comes from a relationship with Christ. Here, again, is how Paul puts it.
God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus…
There are several things that we learn from this new perspective.
1. What was an argument against Christianity for the philosopher Celsus was the glory of the faith for Paul.
From a human perspective, the rag-tag band of Christians at Corinth was no advertisement for God's power and glory. But from the perspective given us in Christ, the same rag-tag band of Christians is a powerful testimony to God's power, grace, and glory.
Throughout the Bible God is on the side of the humble and lowly.
— The exodus in the OT is the story of how God takes a group of slaves and makes them his people.
— Think of the people surrounding the Christmas story like the shepherds.
2. This new perspective in Christ transforms my basis of self worth.
It's hard even for successful people to always be winners. There is always something that will pull us down: the lose of a job; the fact that others are much further along the road of what the world calls success than we will ever be.
And let's face it, no one escapes in the inroads of age, sickness and death itself. We're all going to lose the fight against death some day. But in Christ, I don't have to play the game of winners and losers. My worth comes from a whole different source. I like the way the NRSV puts verse 30.
He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
All the beautiful, good and ideal that the Greeks were looking for were there for them in what Christ has done. He has become for us "wisdom from God", but not in a Greek way. Instead, he has become for us "wisdom from God" in a way that makes us winners in God's eyes: Christ is our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
That last word— redemption— would have been especially important to the lowly in Corinth. This is a slavery word, in a world, remember where 2/3's were or had been slaves. The good news of the gospel is that it took what others regarded as mere property (slaves) and transformed them into human beings, even, children of God. It told people that though they may worthless in the eyes of the world that they were worth the death of God's only Son. The good news of the gospel is that losers become winners in Christ.
3. This brings us to the third thing we learn from the new perspective in Christ: Because of what Christ has done, no one can brag about being a winner before the Lord.
Let me read verses 28 and 29 from the NRSV.
28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, 29 so that no one might boast in the presence of God.
There is good news for those that know that they can't be winners forever in the eyes of the world. For all in my life that I can point to that makes me a winner, I know there is another side as well. I am a broken person in need of God's grace.
And that is exactly what Paul meant when he spoke of the lowly. It's what Jesus meant when he said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
That changes the way I see myself: all that I pointed to before that made me a winner is put into its right perspective. Before the Lord, I'm a winner because of what Christ has done and nothing more. Losers are winners in God's kingdom. That's good news for anyone who knows they need God's grace.
It also means we are freed to live what others might call a "loser's" life because we're a winner through Christ. I can be a servant, I can give my time, my career, my money, my whole life in Christ's service because I don't have to measure up to any worldly standard. Like Paul, I can be a "fool for Christ" because I'm Christ's winner and that's all that counts. God has chosen "the lowly things of this world… so that no one may boast before him."