The Folly of Divine Power Text: 1 Corinthians 2:1-5
Introduction: Two Kinds of Wisdom
We live in an age that is besotted with expertise. Our culture worships at the altar of the polished, the credentialed, and the articulate. We are impressed by smooth presentations, by rhetorical flourish, and by the kind of self-assured wisdom that dominates the TED talks and the halls of academia. The world has its standards for what constitutes a powerful and persuasive message, and those standards are all about human ability, human cleverness, and human strength.
The church at Corinth was located in a city much like our own. It was a hub of commerce, philosophy, and rhetoric. It was a place where a man's worth was measured by his eloquence and his ability to command a crowd. And into this environment, the fledgling Corinthian church was beginning to import the world's value system. They were developing a taste for "super-apostles," for men who came with the kind of slick, impressive packaging that the world admired. They were starting to evaluate their ministers the way one might evaluate a traveling sophist, and by those standards, the apostle Paul came up short.
Paul's response to this is not to defend himself on their terms. He does not pull out his resume, polish his rhetoric, or try to compete in the arena of worldly wisdom. Instead, he drives a stake through the very heart of their entire evaluation system. He tells them, in effect, that the criteria they are using to judge ministry are not just wrong, but diametrically opposed to the very nature of the gospel. The gospel is not a message that can be adorned with the world's wisdom, because the world's wisdom is foolishness to God. The power of the gospel does not operate on the same principles as the power of men. It operates through weakness, through foolishness, and through the public scandal of a crucified Messiah. What Paul does in this passage is force a choice between two incompatible systems: the wisdom of men, which is all about human performance, and the power of God, which is all about divine grace demonstrated in human weakness.
This is a message our own celebrity-driven, results-oriented, pragmatic evangelicalism desperately needs to hear. We too are tempted to measure our success by the world's metrics, to trust in our programs, our eloquence, and our strategic plans. But Paul reminds us that the foundation of our faith must not rest on such sinking sand. It must rest on one thing, and one thing alone: the raw, unadorned, world-shattering power of God.
The Text
And when I came to you, brothers, I did not come with superiority of word or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the witness of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my word 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 be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
(1 Corinthians 2:1-5 LSB)
A Deliberate Rejection of Worldly Methods (v. 1)
Paul begins by reminding the Corinthians of how he first arrived among them.
"And when I came to you, brothers, I did not come with superiority of word or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the witness of God." (1 Corinthians 2:1)
Paul's arrival in Corinth was not an accident. It was a mission. And on this mission, he made a conscious, deliberate choice to set aside the tools that a professional orator or philosopher of that day would have considered essential. He did not come with "superiority of word or of wisdom." This is not to say that Paul was an incoherent babbler. He was a brilliant logician, capable of profound and intricate argumentation, as the book of Romans demonstrates. The issue here is not competence, but reliance. Paul is rejecting the idea of rhetorical excellence or philosophical sophistication as the basis of his ministry's effectiveness.
The world believes that if you have a powerful message, you must package it in a powerful way. You need eloquence, charisma, and a commanding presence. But Paul says he intentionally stripped all of that away. Why? Because he was not proclaiming his own insights or a philosophy he had developed. He was proclaiming "the witness of God." The word here is "marturion," the testimony of God. When you are a witness in a courtroom, your job is not to be clever or entertaining. Your job is to deliver the testimony faithfully. To add your own rhetorical flair is to tamper with the evidence. The message was not Paul's; it was God's. And a divine message does not need to be propped up by human cleverness. In fact, to do so is to insult the message and to distract from its source. It is like trying to improve the light of the sun by holding a candle up to it.
Paul understood that if he won them over with his dazzling speech, they would become disciples of Paul, not disciples of Jesus. Their faith would be in the messenger, not the message. This is the constant temptation of ministry: to build a following for oneself rather than for Christ. Paul refused to play that game. He came as a herald, not a celebrity.
The One, Non-Negotiable Subject (v. 2)
He then boils his entire curriculum down to one, stark, offensive subject.
"For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." (1 Corinthians 2:2 LSB)
This is one of the most radical statements in the entire New Testament. Paul, a man of immense learning, says that he made a deliberate resolution to set aside all other knowledge and to focus his entire ministry on a single point. That point was not just Jesus Christ in the abstract, a great moral teacher or a wise philosopher. It was specifically "Jesus Christ, and Him crucified."
We must feel the force of this in its original context. To the Jews, a crucified Messiah was a blasphemous contradiction in terms, a "stumbling block." To the Gentiles, particularly the Greeks who prized wisdom and beauty, the idea of worshipping a man who was executed by the state in the most shameful and brutal manner possible was sheer, unadulterated "foolishness." Crucifixion was a death reserved for the lowest of criminals and slaves. It was a public obscenity. And this is what Paul resolved to make the centerpiece of his preaching.
He did not try to soften the blow. He did not try to make the cross more palatable to the Corinthian mind. He did not say, "Let's talk about the Sermon on the Mount first, and we'll get to the unpleasantness later." No, he put the scandal front and center. Why? Because the cross is not an embarrassing addendum to the gospel; it is the gospel. The cross is where the wisdom of God confronts and demolishes the wisdom of man. It is where God's power is displayed in what appears to be the most abject weakness. The cross is God's merciful provision that executes autonomous pride and exalts humility. It is where sin is judged, where righteousness is revealed, and where the love of God is poured out. To preach anything else is to preach a different gospel.
This does not mean Paul never talked about anything else. He certainly did. But it means that everything else he talked about was connected to, and flowed from, the reality of the crucified and risen Christ. The cross was the hub, and all other doctrines were the spokes. If your preaching, your theology, or your Christian life can be detached from the cross without collapsing, then it was not truly Christian to begin with.
The Messenger's Weakness (v. 3)
Paul not only had a message that the world deemed weak, but he delivered it from a position of personal weakness.
"And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling," (1 Corinthians 2:3 LSB)
The super-apostles who were trying to gain influence in Corinth likely projected an aura of confidence, power, and success. They were the kind of men who never let you see them sweat. Paul, in stark contrast, pulls back the curtain and shows the Corinthians his own frailty. He was with them "in weakness." This could refer to a physical ailment, the "thorn in the flesh" he mentions elsewhere, or the beatings and hardships he constantly endured. It certainly refers to his lack of worldly credentials and rhetorical polish.
But he goes further. He was with them "in fear and in much trembling." This is not the fear of man, which would have led him to compromise the message. This is the holy fear of a man who understands the monumental task he has been given. He is handling the very words of life and death. He is dealing with eternal souls. He is an ambassador for the living God. Any man who takes up the task of preaching and does not feel a sense of fear and trembling does not understand the weight of the glory he is handling. He is a fool. Paul's trembling was a sign not of cowardice, but of his profound grasp of the holiness of God and the gravity of his calling. He knew that he was utterly insufficient for the task, and that is precisely the prerequisite for being used by God.
The Source of True Power (v. 4-5)
Finally, Paul contrasts the world's method with God's method, and reveals the ultimate purpose behind his approach.
"and my word 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 be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." (1 Corinthians 2:4-5 LSB)
Here is the great antithesis. On the one hand, you have "persuasive words of wisdom." This is the world's way. It is the art of manipulation, of using clever arguments and emotional appeals to sway an audience. It is man-centered and relies on the skill of the speaker. On the other hand, you have the "demonstration of the Spirit and of power." This is God's way. The word for "demonstration" is "apodeixis," which means a clear proof, an undeniable manifestation.
Paul is saying that when he preached, something happened that was far beyond mere human persuasion. The Holy Spirit went to work. The Spirit took the "foolish" message of the cross and used it as a sword to pierce hearts. He convicted men of their sin. He opened blind eyes. He brought dead souls to life. This is the power, the "dunamis," of God. It is resurrection power. Paul's words were the vehicle, but the Spirit was the engine. The proof of his apostleship was not in his eloquence, but in the transformed lives of the Corinthian believers. They themselves were the demonstration of God's power.
And this leads to the ultimate reason, the great "so that" of verse 5. Paul ministered this way for a very specific purpose: "so that your faith would not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." This is absolutely crucial. If a man is argued into the kingdom by sheer human cleverness, then a cleverer argument can lead him out again. If his faith is built on the charisma of a particular preacher, his faith will crumble when that preacher falls or fails. But if a man's faith is the result of a direct, supernatural encounter with the power of the living God, then it rests on a foundation that cannot be shaken.
God jealously guards His glory. He has ordained that the central message of the universe, the gospel of His Son, be delivered in such a way that no man can take credit for its success. He chooses weak messengers, a foolish message, and a humble method, so that when lives are transformed, everyone knows that it was not the work of man, but the power of God. Our faith must rest on the solid rock of what God has done, not on the shifting sands of human eloquence.