Scripture: 1
Corinthians 2:1-12 (13-16)
Over the last three weeks the assigned readings have been
from 1 Corinthians 1 in which Paul addresses the Corinthians’ divisions and
urges them to find unity in the Lord Jesus who was crucified for them. The
first five verses of this reading focus the reader on Christ crucified as the
message which reveals the wisdom and power of God. Starting at the sixth verse,
Paul begins to speak of spiritual wisdom that comes by the revelation of Jesus
Christ as our savior. This passage draws us further in the reality that living
in the kingdom of heaven changes our interaction with the world and gives us
wisdom that the world rejects.
Teaching
The Christian faith is not about lofty speech or earthly
wisdom. The babble of this world cannot lead us to know Jesus, God’s love, or
the source of our salvation. Thus the message we proclaim is Christ crucified.
So often people worry about softening the message of the Scripture to attract
those who do not believe. Paul, in contrast, determined to know nothing except
Jesus Christ, and him crucified, in his preaching, teaching, and witnessing in
Corinth. This is the message we have been given to proclaim to the world – a message
that is laced is power. It is not our power, but God’s power displayed in the cross
that creates faith.
Faith, then, gives a different kind of wisdom. It is
spiritual wisdom. It open our hearts and minds to receive God’s will, to live
with him by grace and not by our own merit, to submit to his Word, and to learn
from the Spirit of God. These things cannot be known by earthly wisdom. We are
speaking of the mind of God being revealed to us because we have the mind of
Christ. And in this we know what is pleasing to God – not just in the sense of
a person’s behavior, but in the truth that it pleased God to save us by his
grace.
Life
I once sat with a retired executive lamenting my lack of
understanding of budgeting and how the church budget worked. I told him that
all I knew was that we shouldn’t spend more than we make; that we want to be in
the black and not the red. He smiled as said, “That’s pretty much it.” I was
complicating the process.
We sinful people have a way of complicating things. Just as
I struggled with budgets, we struggle to talk about the faith, complain that we
don’t know enough of the Bible, or feel that we are thoroughly overwhelmed by
the vast body of knowledge in the Scriptures. In the end, though, it all comes
down to Christ crucified. This is sort of opposite of the financial lingo
above, but if black is sin and red is Jesus’ blood we want to be in the red.
How can recognizing the message of Christ crucified as the
summary of our faith encourage us in our witness? How can it encourage us to
face each day believing that the heart of our hope in Christ is that he died
for us for the forgiveness of our sins?
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