1 Corinthians 1:18-32:  The Foolishness of Preaching

In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul said God uses the foolishness of preaching to save.  God saves people through the foolishness of preaching.  Paul started out this section in verse 18 by saying that “the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness.”

It’s not that the cross is foolishness or that preaching is foolishness.  People think it is foolishness and Paul is saying, “That thing they think is foolishness; that’s what God uses to save.”  God uses a means that does not make sense.  Because people think the gospel is foolishness, they become offended from it.

Of all the offenses of the gospel, Paul gives at least two.  (1)  The Cross, and (2)  Preaching.  The cross is offensive.  It is this way also in at least two ways.  (1)  Someone on a cross needs saving.  Saving comes by a powerful means.  (2)  The cross would be to say that Jesus is the Savior or the Messiah.  I’m not going to write about that in this post.  Instead, preaching.

Rather Signs or Wisdom

Paul in essence asks, “Why use preaching when Jews seek after signs and Greeks after wisdom?” (1 Cor 1:22)  He divides all men into these two different methodological categories.  Jews and Greeks need signs and wisdom, not preaching.  In my thirty-five plus years of ministry, I agree that every audience of ministry breaks down into those two general categories.

When you think of signs and wisdom, that might seem like two items people should like and want.  They are two biblical words.  In a very technical sense, a sign is a miracle.  Almost exclusively, I think someone should view a miracle as a sign gift.  I will get back to that.

Wisdom.  Isn’t Proverbs about wisdom?  We pray for wisdom.  How could wisdom be bad?  Proverbs 4:7 says, “Wisdom is the principle thing.”

Signs and Wisdom

Signs

Signs are something evident in a way of supernatural intervention.  If there is a God, won’t He do obvious supernatural things?  “If He doesn’t do those, why should I believe in Him?  I want to see some signs.  Wouldn’t He give me those if He really wanted me to believe in Him?  That would be easy for Him, if He really did exist.  If God did give me signs, I would believe.  Since He doesn’t, then I won’t believe or I don’t need to believe.”

The absence of signs is not that God is not working.  He works in thousands of different ways in every moment.  They are all supernatural.  We even can see how God is working in numbers of ways.

People would say they want more than God’s providential working.  That isn’t enough.  They want God to make it easy for them to believe by doing something amazing and astounding like what they read that Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Jesus, and the Apostles did.  People desire direct supernatural divine intervention.

Churches feel the pressure to fake signs, because people want them.  They aren’t signs, because they’re faking them, which redefines even what a sign is.  Churches also conjure up experiences that give an impression that something supernatural is occurring.  People can claim a sign from a lowered expectation of what a sign is.  Even if it isn’t something supernatural, people want to feel something at church that might have them think the Holy Spirit is there.  This is their evidence for God.

Wisdom

Wisdom in 1 Corinthians 1 isn’t God’s wisdom, but human or man’s wisdom.  This could be what people call “science” today.  It is scientific proof or evidence.  They need data or empirical evidence.  This is very brainy arguments.

God is working in the world.  It is good to talk about that.  This is known as the providence of God.  He upholds this world and all that is in it in many various ways.  I love that.

A lot of evidence exists out there for everything that is in the Bible:  archaeological, scientific, psychological, logical, and historical.  People will say that’s what they need and that’s what makes sense to them.  Even if they’re not saying that, it makes sense to believers that they need intellectual arguments.

Jews and Greeks in 1 Corinthians 1 represent all apparent seekers in God.  If churches and their leaders are seeker sensitive, they would provide signs and wisdom.  In a categorical way, that’s what they do.  They use the preferred ways of their audience, rather than what God says to do.  Apparent seekers are not the source for a method of salvation.  God is.

You could give analysis as to the place of signs and wisdom as categorical approaches for ministry philosophy.  Churches are rampant with both.  Paul is saying, eliminate those as methods.  Use the God-ordained method only.

God wants preaching as the method of accomplishing salvation.  People are not saved any other way than preaching.  Many reasons exist for this, some given in 1 Corinthians 1 and others in other biblical texts.