Yielding not Wielding

1 Corinthians 1.18-31 Christ the Power and Wisdom of God

18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’ 20Where 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? 21For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. 22For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, 23but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

26 Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, 29so that no one might boast in the presence of God. 30He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31in order that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.

‘Wise’ used 13 times here! (sofia Σοφία)

The twin pillars upon which Paul's exposition is constructed are the Old Testament quotations in 1:19 and 1:31.

19For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’

31…as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.

Both of these are taken from passages that depict God as one who acts to judge and save his people in ways that defy human expectation. Paul thus links the gospel of the cross to the older story of judgment and grace told in Israel's Scripture.

In this part of the letter, Paul makes no explicit reference to the problems at Corinth; the theme of divisions in the church does no reappear until 3:1-4. Nonetheless, he is artfully laying the theological groundwork for his critique of the Corinthians' divisiveness. As we read through this section, we begin to see Paul's diagnosis of the root cause of the Corinthian conflict. They are caught up in rivalries because the glory in the superficially impressive human wisdom of this age. They are boasting about their own possession of wisdom and rhetorical eloquence or at least they are infatuated with leaders who manifest these skills.

God, however, has revealed in Christ another kind of wisdom that radically subverts the wisdom of this world: God has chosen to save the world through the cross, through the shameful and powerless death of the crucified Messiah. If that shocking event is the revelation of the deepest truth about the character of God, then our whole way of seeing the world is turned upside down. Everything has to be reevaluated in light of the cross.

Our familiarity with "the cross" as a theme of Christian preaching may tend to obscure the astonishing imaginative power of this passage.

Paul has taken the central event at the heart of the Christian story— the death of Jesus— and used it as the lens through which all human experience must be projected and thereby seen afresh. The cross becomes the starting point for a revolution in wisdom. Thus, Paul provides the categories necessary for a fresh critical evaluation of divisions in the church and, more fundamentally, of our

understanding of wisdom, power, and wealth. For anyone who grasps the paradoxical logic of this text, the world can never look the same again.

The cross is seen differently by different people – depending on their perspective (this is perhaps more consistent with our culture today – including in the West): “the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (v18) The expression about those “who are being saved” is important for understanding the nature and implications of salvation – we do not save ourselves, we are the recipients of God’s salvation. Furthermore, salvation is not a past event, but a continuous one “being saved” (present participle). This is particularly important message for the church in Corinth - Paul needs them to impress upon them throughout this letter the not-yet-completed character of salvation in Christ. These Christians haven’t ‘already arrived; already in full possession of the truth’

The cross seems inoffensive today – but back in Paul’s day…!

They knew the humiliation of this dehumanising execution – it was intended to obliterate a person; wipe them away into the rubbish dump. It was a demonstration that no one can defy the power of Rome.

And yet, Paul says “we proclaim Christ crucified” (v23) To the culture of the day, it sounded nonsense to proclaim a crucified messiah.

Yet… it is this event that is central in God’s triumph over all other powers.

Rather than proving the superiority and sovereignty of Roman rule, the crucifixion of Jesus shatters the world’s flimsy systems of authority.

“God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.”

In other words, God has exploded the ‘common sense’ of the day through foolishness – in the Greek ‘moria’ (from where we get the word ‘moron’). This word moria highlights the utter craziness of the gospel of the cross to the sensibilities of the day.

How can the humiliating death of Jesus on the cross be the event by which the world is saved? One would have to be a fool to believe that!

Could Paul imagine how the message of the Cross would change Western civilisation so massively? Away from the cruelty of Greek and Roman civilisation (Tom Holland). We now swim in the water of Chrisitan values – human dignity, equality, protections.

Holland punctures common myths about Christianity and secularism in every chapter. In no way does Holland let the church off the hook for its failures. Nor will he let secular people live with the illusion that their values are just self-evident, the result of reason and scientific investigation.

If both sides would allow themselves to be chastened by Holland, their future conversations will be much more fruitful, and more tethered to reality.

Power of Empires VS powerlessness of the Cross. A new understanding has endured: Christians, because of Jesus, came to believe that God was closer to the weak than the mighty.

“the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve” (Matt 20:28)

We have been saved by the Son of God who did not wield a hammer but yielded to the nails.

God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom. The cross is the point at which the conflict between God’s ways and human ways is revealed to be irreconcilable.

Maybe we can learn more about what God is like, and how he’d like us to live with one another, if we practice a bit more yielding and a bit less wielding.

The view of Jesus as merely a ‘wise teacher’ divorced from his suffering and death on the cross is a nonsense. This is the point Paul is making – “we proclaim Christ crucified”.

This is reflected in the words of the hymn we will sing later ‘In the Cross of Christ I Glory’

https://worship.calvin.edu/resources/resource-library/worship-service-a-foolish-message-1-corinthians-1/