1 Corinthians 1:29-2:5

1 Corinthians 1:28–2:5 NASB 2020

But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written: “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.” And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear, and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

Prayer: O great God of highest heaven, Your law is perfect, restoring the soul; Your testimony is sure, making wise the simple; Your precepts are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. May Your Word today restore us, make us wise, cause us to rejoice, and enlighten our eyes to the truth. I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.

Last week we ended by looking how we are to boast in Christ, the power of God, who has saved the weak and despised of this world and made them sons of God, and the wisdom of God, who has exposed the foolishness of man’s boasting and pride in himself. And this is what we must believe. Because if we do not we will be prone to try and seek something outside of Christ and boast in that. Paul in chapter 2 addresses one area that we can boast outside of Christ: eloquent/persuasive speech and human wisdom in preaching.

Paul gives us important lessons for gospel preaching here in these verses. First, Paul says that he did not come to them with superiority of speech. Paul’s mission was not to couch the gospel in the language of the trained orator, who had studied the techniques of influencing people by persuasive arguments. One way that preachers can fall into boasting in themselves is through the use of superior or persuasive speech in their preaching. They think that it is through superior ways of communication that people are persuaded of the gospel. Paul already addressed this in 1 Cor. 1:17 “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void.”

Now there is nothing wrong with excellent speech or knowing how to speak well. In fact, we all should be trying to better communicate the gospel with those around us. So, Paul is not saying here that men should be ignorant or speak ignorantly. He is not approving sloppy presentations of Christian truth or disapproving of disciplined, rigorous, and reasonable communication of the gospel. Paul himself was a gifted orator and debater. We see this in his epistles to the churches and in his dealings with various types of people throughout his ministry. What Paul is warning is “don’t fall into the trap of thinking it is because of your excellence or superiority in speech that people hear the gospel and are saved.” (It all rests on you and your ability to persuade people to come to Christ.) This is what Paul means when he says he does not preach in this way because it makes void the cross of Christ. If you think this way you are, in a way, saying that the cross is not necessary to save people, my persuasive rhetoric is.

This is a trap because once a preacher believes this, it can easily become a source of pride in their life and ministry and they will do anything to try maintain that reality. It can soon become a source of selfish ambition in which they can resort to manipulative rhetoric in order to maintain a sense of control over their hearers. They begin to use what the Bible says is “smooth talk” or “flattery” (honeyed words) in order to to do this. And once they begin to walk down this road it is a slippery slope that can eventually lead them to turn people away from sound doctrine in order to satisfy their own desire for attention and greed. 2 Peter 2:1–3 talks about this: “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words, their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.”

Paul has already told us in chapter 1 to beware of pride. Do not boast in yourselves or in who you are or in what you can do. 1 Corinthians 1:26–29 “For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God.”

The other thing Paul points out here is that he did not come with a superiority of wisdom. Paul did not come to preach the gospel from the cleverness of human wisdom. This is another trap for the preacher. They can tend to think that they need to invent new ways to present the gospel, so they come up with all sorts of clever audience-pleasing devices to use. Pastors believe that they have to think “outside of the box” in order to win people for Jesus. And so they create different ways to tickle the ears of their hearers in order to get them to come back for more. Some Christian preachers use manipulative devices or methods that are unworthy of an honest proclamation of the cross. They may use music, lighting, or certain rhetoric to manipulate and therefore run the risk of making void the cross of Christ.

Yet the blame for these things does not just lie with the preachers or pastors. It also lies with the hearers. The people have demanded showmanship/cleverness from their ministers and they prove that by flocking to the ones who do it best. Some of the largest churches in the world are run by pastors who have fallen into the trap of having to come with superior/persuasive speech or human wisdom/cleverness. 2 Timothy 4:3–4 sums this up: “For the time will come when they (parishioners/the people) will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.” They chase celebrity and therefore have created it. Paul rejects “pleasing the audience” because then the audience would be construction or reshaping the gospel.

But Paul gives us the solution to this problem. 1 Corinthians 2:1–2 “And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” Paul brings us back to the wisdom and power of God in the foolishness of the cross. The cross provides a standard not only for what Christians should say of Christ but also how they say it. Now, does preaching, teaching, or witnessing about Christ sometimes draw more attention to the speaker than to Christ? It can. Which is why those who preach, those who teach, those who witness to others about Christ need to be careful how they do it.

How do pastors avoid the trap of boasting in superior/persuasive speech or the cleverness of human wisdom? They preach Christ and Him crucified. They preach the Son of God, the Messiah, God of very God, Light from Light, true God from true God, who came down from heaven and who became flesh to live among us and then die on a cross to forgive us our sins. They boast in Christ and what He has done. They preach the word in season and out of season (which means that they preach God’s word whether it is popular or not); reprove, rebuke, exhort, and with great patience and instruction (2 Timothy 4:2). They preach “in weakness and in fear and in much trembling” (1 Cor. 2:3) knowing that they preach the very words of God and He hears every word they speak. To preach with no fear, no trembling, no sense of their weakness could suggest that the preacher has forgotten how much is at stake. These are very sobering thoughts.

Paul then says that he preaches the message of God in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. (1 Cor. 2:4). I was taught that this meant that the preaching of God’s word must be spectacular, moving, with signs and miracles following. If not, it was ineffective. What could Paul have in mind here? The greatest demonstration of the power of the Spirit is that those who were dead in their sins being made alive unto God through Christ. The greatest miracle is the sinner being rescued from the domain of darkness and being transferred to the kingdom of Christ. In Romans 10, Paul gives us the purpose of preaching the testimony of God in Christ and Him crucified: it produces faith in those who hear and that faith causes them to confess Jesus Christ as Lord and then believe that Christ was crucified and then raised from the dead, which causes them to be saved.

This is the message we preach here at Trinity Reformed Church. We are not here to wow you with spiritual intellect, or dazzle you with clever devices of human wisdom. It is to proclaim to you the testimony of God as it has been given to us in His Word: Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God, came to die for your sins so that you might have abundant and eternal life in Him.

We looked at the solution for preachers, what is the solution for the people of God to not participate in falling into this trap? Do not demand the gospel be preached in accordance to your own desires. Do not desire to have your ears tickled where you will only listen to those teachers that will just give you what you want. Desire sound doctrine. Do not rest your faith on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. Let the gospel of Christ and Him crucified become wisdom to you, let it clothe you in righteousness, let it sanctify you and make you more like Christ, and let it redeem you and set you free from the yoke and bondage of sin and give to you everlasting life.

I want you all to know that you demonstrate this in our church. This describes you. When I look out at you all, I see the desire you have for Christ and for sound doctrine. I want you to know how much your pastors appreciate you and love you. Hebrews 13:17 “Obey your leaders and submit to them—for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account—so that they will do this with joy and not with groaning, for this would be unprofitable for you.” You all are a joy to us.

Pray prayer 11 from BCP