1 Corinthians 1:18-31 02/01/2026

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. ¹⁹ For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” ²⁰ Where 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? ²¹ For 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. ²² For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, ²³ but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For 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. ²⁷ But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; ²⁸ God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, ²⁹ so that no one might boast in the presence of God. ³⁰ He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, ³¹ in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

 

 

Foolish Wisdom 02/01/2026 (Emailed due to snow)

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Some years ago the topic of the day on an Oprah Winfrey show was “Having Affairs With Married Men.” She had brought together several women who were currently in affairs and asked them how they felt about it. One woman responded very positively. She stated that she had been in a long-standing affair with a married man and was quite happy.

Please keep in mind that this program was being broadcast not only throughout America, but also in multiple other nations around the world.

After taking several responses from the studio audience one person had the nerve to raise the question of morality. The woman, who moments before had proclaimed that she was very happy in her affair, instantly took offense.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “I’m a Christian, but I want everyone to know that my personal life and my religion don’t interfere with one another.” She went on to say, “I believe in a God who wants me to be happy, and if this man makes me happy, then obviously God approves of the relationship.”

That is an absolutely amazing belief. I can’t help but wonder where she came up with it, because I’ve never discovered it in the Bible. By using this woman’s logic, if I elect to get high on drugs, or become falling down drunk, or even marry someone of the same sex because it makes me happy, then God must approve of my actions.

Many who hear people express words like those of the woman having an affair may think that this is just another sign of the morally bad times in which we live. I have a news flash for them. There’s nothing new about this kind of thinking; its been around for a long time.

People have always wanted a God who will place His stamp of approval upon the life-style they choose to live. They want a God who will never require them to make a change for the better. And there is no shortage of euphemisms to make how they choose to live sound acceptable.

What used to be called “living in sin” is now called “a meaningful relationship.”

What used to be called “self-indulgence” is now called “self-fulfillment.”

What used to be called “chastity” is now called “a neurotic inhibition.”

And what used to be called “killing the unborn” is now called “the right to choose.”

Jesus encountered these attitudes in His day. As He looked at a group of Pharisees and Sadducees he called them “hypocrites” and “white washed sepulchers.” Why? Because to the world they appeared to have God’s stamp of approval. They presented themselves as being pious, prayerful and obedient to God, but inside they were rotten to the core.

People are still like that today. The woman on Oprah was just one example. All too many who profess to being a Christian feel as though God doesn’t want them to change in anyway. Think about it. He took us as we were when we came to Jesus. This must mean that He is OK with us staying just as we are.

That may seem to work for a while, but sooner or later they are going to bump into the old rugged cross. It is there that they will meet the God who proclaims, “I don’t approve of the way you are living. I don’t like your sin. Your sin is so horrible, so evil, it required that I go to the cross, suffer and die for it.”

Paul said that the Jews stumbled over that cross. He proclaimed that the Greeks thought it was foolishness. But, he said, others saw in it, and still see in it, the power and wisdom of God.

The Jews looked at the cross that Jesus hung on and stumbled over it because they didn’t see the kind of Messiah they had hoped for. That’s strange because God had carefully picked the Jews. He had watched over and protected them down through the generations. He had prepared them to be the nation through whom the Messiah would come.

But when the Messiah did arrive, they first rejected Him and then they crucified Him. John 1:11 says:

“He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.”

Paul tells us that the Jews also stumbled over the cross because they “….demanded miraculous signs.” They wanted a Messiah who would perform miracles on their behalf.

The irony here is that this was exactly what Jesus had done. He performed miraculous signs. He gave sight to the blind; straighten the legs of the lame and cleansed the putrid skin of lepers. Jesus was in ministry to thousands of people, reaching out to meet their needs.

These things went right over the heads of the Jewish spiritual leaders because they weren’t the kinds of miracles they wanted. They wanted miraculous signs of power and success. They wanted a Messiah who would overthrow the Romans, chase them out of Judea and re-establish the Kingdom of David.

If Jesus would have marshaled an army, led them into battle and defeated the Romans; if He would have shown them that He was successful and victorious; they would have marched behind Him. But the cross got in their way.

You see, the cross doesn’t look like success, power or victory. It looks like weakness, failure and defeat, so they kept bumping into it or falling over it because they couldn’t get around it.

Not only did they have a false concept of the type of Messiah God would send, they also had a false concept of salvation. They thought that the way to salvation was through their own righteousness, so they were busy trying to keep the Law.

The problem with this was that they WEREN’T keeping God’s Law. They just fooled everybody into thinking that they were by being a busy bunch of people. They were busy running to the synagogue at the appointed times; busy saying their prayers and saying them loudly so that others could hear them. And they were busy giving their offerings in such a way that everybody would be impressed with their generosity. They were very busy appearing to be pious and prayerful and generous. Is the Holy Spirit speaking to the heart of anyone here today?

As far as they were concerned, they didn’t need a Savior and they certainly didn’t need one who was going to die on a cross. They thought the way to salvation was through a type of righteousness that they had carefully defined to fit their own liking. As a result, they kept falling over the cross.

In verse 22 of our scripture reading, Paul first stated that the Jews demanded signs, and then he turned his attention to the Greeks, declaring that they desired wisdom.

The Greeks were the intelligentsia of the age. They had produced great thinkers like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

Socrates pushed the concept that education was the secret to having a successful society. He figured that if we could just give everybody a good education, then it must follow that the world would get better and better.

Does that sound familiar. In America we’ve been told this for generations. It’s exactly what was being said before WWI and WWII. Education will solve all of our problems. All we need is for people to have access to more education, and mankind will become better and better. But that hasn’t happened, has it?

I am not opposed to education, but we can learn everything we think there is to know and still have a fatal flaw. That fatal flaw is sin.

The 17th chapter of Acts describes a scene where Paul is in Athens. The Athenian sages sat on Mars Hill all day thinking up profound thoughts. “And,” Luke says, “they told each other everything new.”

Then one day the apostle Paul approached and began speaking about a God who was unknown to them. He explained that this God came to earth, walked among men, died on the cross and then rose from the dead. To these very educated philosophers, what Paul had to say amounted to foolishness.

Reason told them that babies aren’t born to virgin girls. Reason told them that God, who is spirit, cannot dwell in flesh. Reason told them that an almighty God would never allow puny men to nail Him to a cross. Reason told them that when a man dies he cannot be resurrected back to life in the flesh. Nothing Paul said to them made human sense, so the Greeks viewed the cross as mere foolishness.

Long before Paul spoke to them they had settled their concept of salvation. They believed that souls are immortal, therefore, when someone dies they automatically go to be with the immortal Gods. If their life was good enough, then they stayed with the Gods. But if it wasn’t, they were reincarnated into another body and given another chance. Their path to salvation meant that the process of death and reincarnation would continue until a person finally got it right. This concept meant that everybody would eventually be saved so there would be no need of having a Savior.

When it came to hearing about a cross; that was foolishness. Why would anybody have to go to a cross and die when, in the end, we’re all going to be saved?

Does any of this sound familiar? We hearing that same kind of thinking today. It spews forth from the mouths of Hollywood stars, other faith traditions and, unfortunately, misinformed Christians. From before the time of Paul standing on Mars Hill all the way to today, man really hasn’t learned anything new. We’re still committing the same old sins; still thinking the same false thoughts; still stumbling over the same cross and treating the wisdom of God as foolishness.

Now interestingly, the man who wrote the words we read in 1 Corinthians tried approaching God from two ways. Paul originally tried being a good Jew, even to the point of committing murder because he thought that was the right thing to do in order to defend God’s honor. Yet when he had kept all the rules; when he tried to save himself through his own righteousness, he was left feeling empty.

He also tried education. Paul sat at the feet of the finest teachers, and when he had learned all that his mind would hold he still felt empty inside.

Then, in one anxious moment while on the way to Damascus, he saw a light that blinded him and heard a voice he had never heard before.

In the 7th chapter of Romans Paul opened his heart to us. He said “I now understand what’s right and what’s wrong.” This is an amazing statement because most people in the world today still haven’t figured this out. People try to say that what used to be right is now wrong, and what used to be wrong is now right.

Paul said “I know what is right and what is wrong.” Then he carried it farther. He said: “I really want to do what’s right, and I don’t want to do what is wrong. But here is my problem. When I get ready to do what’s right, there is a power that tries to overwhelm me, and I often end up doing what’s wrong.”

Did you think you were the only person who has ever experienced feeling this way? From the depths of Paul’s soul he cries out, “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” Then he answers his own question, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Jesus lifted the burden of Paul’s sin, took away his anxiety and replaced it with peace, took away his despair and replaced it with hope, and took away his sadness, replacing it with joy. The Good News is that He will do the same for you.

God accomplished that which was impossible before He went to the cross and died for my sins. He did for me what I couldn’t do for myself. I can’t explain the mystery of it, but I know that it is true, because it happened to me.

Jesus has a standing invitation, but like many store coupons has a use by date. You have to redeem the invitation before you die and the sooner the better. You are invited to come to the cross and accept the one who suffered and died for your sin. You are invited to submit yourself to the one who will love you, but He will also tell you that He doesn’t like your sin, your lifestyle or you thinking that you can stand in His presence based on your own righteousness. He stands ready to forgive you. All you have to do is accept Him as your Saviour and He will strengthen you for becoming the person He wants you to be.

Now, do you consider this to be foolishness on the part of God or wisdom? That is something you have to decide for yourself.

Amen