He was appealing to the contrast introduced in 1 Corinthians 1:17, “For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” The problem was eloquent wisdom that forsook or minimized the reality of a crucified Messiah. What Paul avoided was that form of rhetorical eloquence and wisdom that minimized the content and centrality of the gospel because Christ crucified was considered a crude message of folly according to the world’s wisdom (1 Cor. Smith, in his book Dying to Preach, rightly observes, “Paul was wise, his speech was superior, and he was indeed a brilliant intellect who took advantage of the classic rhetorical devices in his writings and sermons” (43). Paul was a gifted rhetorician and logician whom listening crowds identified with Hermes, the Greek god of communication, “because he was the chief speaker” (Acts 14:12). Nothing in his biography paints the picture of a man who could not hold his own in rhetoric, the academy, or philosophical debate.Īfter his conversion, Paul was proclaiming the truth of God in Lystra and the pagan crowd who heard him exclaimed, “The god’s have come down to us in human form” (Acts 14:11).
He rose to a position of cultural prominence as a leading Pharisee very quickly (Acts 26:9-11). Paul was studying the Scriptures long before his conversion and had certainly memorized much of the OT. He was an excellent and zealous student (Phil. He was born a Roman citizen, grew up in Jerusalem, and was trained by the leading Jewish Rabbi of his day, Gamaliel (Acts 22). Paul came from a family of tent makers and leather workers and it appears his family was well off financially. His family was of the tribe of Benjamin (Phil 3:5) and he was named after the most prominent member of the tribe–King Saul. Paul was born in a Jewish family in Tarsus (Acts 21:39, 22:3). Instead, it was a deliberate choice Paul was making because of the way the message of the cross provided a shaping influence on the practice of preaching. It was not that Paul was lacking the rhetorical skill or the ability to debate wisdom. He explains that he did not come proclaiming to the Corinthians “the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom” (1 Cor. The gospel message of Christ-crucified shaped the way Paul approached the task of preaching. The apostle Paul recalled his gospel mission work among the Corinthians about five years earlier when he first came to them (1 Cor. God’s rejection of the wisdom of the world was also to be demonstrated in the ministry of apostolic preaching and by extension by shepherds in post-apostolic churches.
Through faith, Christ Jesus is to the “foolish in the world,” the “wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. Rather, God demonstrated his wisdom, freedom and sovereign love in the pouring out of his gospel grace on lowly sinners through the work of the crucified Christ. God’s choice defied the logic, power, and wisdom of the world. He did this “so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Cor. 1:27), the “low,” the “despised”, and the “things that are not” (1 Cor. Paul tells us that God chose the “foolish in the world,” the “weak” (1 Cor. God’s decision to save the world through the lowly word of the cross was demonstrated through his calling together of lowly people in the Corinthian church (1:18-31).
0 kommentar(er)
