Wonderful things had happened at Corinth, six years prior to Paul writing these words. As their founding pastor, his preaching had resulted in many remarkable conversions; trophies of grace. This enormously wealthy Greek city, proud of its beautiful buildings, its philosophy and teachers, had yielded up a people humbled by the power of the Spirit and brought to see their need of salvation.
Wonderful things had happened at Corinth, six years prior to Paul writing these words. As their founding pastor, his preaching had resulted in many remarkable conversions; trophies of grace. This enormously wealthy Greek city, proud of its beautiful buildings, its philosophy and teachers, had yielded up a people humbled by the power of the Spirit and brought to see their need of salvation.
The Corinthian church was nothing like as bad as it is often portrayed. There is a tendency among expositors to overstate the deficiencies of the church, turning it into a carnal church with fundamental unbelief and great moral sin. But it could not have been as bad as this, because the apostle Paul gives it high commendation. Nevertheless, he is very candid about the problems that had developed.
There certainly were immoral people, and the church was greatly at fault for not having exercised discipline as they should have done. But the wicked ones were clearly a small minority, for Paul approves the church overall, and addresses them as dear brethren in the Lord.
Here is another of their problems that had to be challenged. There was a trend among the Corinthians to feel embarrassed by the Gospel. The message of the cross had saved them, and they loved it, but when it came to telling their relations, colleagues and friends about it, they thought that it was not sophisticated enough.
The Gospel Not Enough?
They forgot how this message in its apparent simplicity had worked powerfully in their own lives. They felt that for their people they needed to somehow contextualise the Gospel. They needed to make it more intelligent, and more Grecian. They needed to accommodate it to the outlook of the proud, proud people of Corinth, who would expect philosophical arguments, and quotations from their own worthies. In fact, they strove to make the message look very much like what people already believed, to make it acceptable to them.
The apostle must now show them how outrageous this was, to be tempted to intellectualise, philosophise or accommodate the Gospel to worldly wisdom. They wanted all the embellishments of polished Greek orators, with all their rhetorical devices. Paul must now persuade them of the folly of such thinking, and he does so, first, by showing how ignorant ‘worldly’ learning is when it comes to human need and the way of salvation. Then he reminds them of their own spiritual history, saying, ‘And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency [superiority] of speech or of wisdom.’
Paul’s condemnation of the wisdom of this world does not, of course, refer to mathematics or a host of other subjects, but to man’s ideas about the nature of God, of man, and of how man may be reconciled with God. In these most significant areas of knowledge, all human wisdom, declares Paul, is foolishness.
Where Human Wisdom Fails
Why do human beings at their most intelligent miss the mark in this field of knowledge? Obviously, because we can know nothing about the mind of the eternal God unless he reveals it to us. Without revelation, we cannot discern how he brings people into relationship with himself. Human speculation cannot see into the divine mind.
Also, the pride of man prevents him from acknowledging vital truths, such as his own depravity, and this leads him to think that he can by his own efforts earn the favour of God. If the fallen state of man is asserted, human pride says, ‘This isn’t true; we are not depraved; we are good at heart. We cannot accept this idea.’
Paul therefore reminds the Corinthians of what happened when he arrived in their city. He brought no elaborate, spectacular oratory, with embellishments, ornamentation or rhetorical tricks. He employed no histrionics, and quoted no philosophers.
Some Christians think the Gospel is not enough. We must have multiple bands with people rocking for hours, and a little bit of message slipped in
Mark you, there are many Christians who fall into exactly the same mistake as the Corinthians today, only worse. They think that the Gospel, however earnestly preached, declaring man’s need, Christ’s coming and death, and the way of repentance and faith, is not enough to draw respect and attention, let alone persuade people to turn to Christ. Drama must be employed, and films made to effectively communicate. The Word of God is not enough. We must, like the fiasco held last year in Essex called Rock Thurrock, set up by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, have multiple bands with people rocking for hours, and a little bit of message slipped in. This will improve on the Gospel, which must be accommodated to what people want and think, giving the impression that the faith is not far from their godless, worldly lifestyle. This will commend it to their taste. Just as the unsaved Corinthian would not feel he would have to surrender his philosophies or his culture, the people at Rock Thurrock will not need to give up the world. So Paul’s words apply to professing Christian people today.
For his part, Paul says, ‘For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.’ This was the great topic of his preaching: our need of Jesus Christ and his suffering and death on Calvary, making atonement for lost sinners. Our need of Christ includes the law of God and our need of cleansing. We may preach these themes from texts that teach them directly, from biblical testimonies and accounts of salvation, from parables depicting salvation and from miracles picturing soul-healing. But Christ must be the heart of our evangelistic preaching. We will preach Christ from the Old and from the New Testaments, but he and not human teaching or entertainment must be the sole concern of the Christian church.