April 24th, 2020 – Devotional With Pastor Dan
And I, brethren when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (1 Corinthians 2:1-5)
This is a great passage of Scripture for sure. I think that what we see from so many of the modern preachers is the desire to connect with the Christian body through persuasive words of human wisdom. That is, trying to appeal to the masses without the real preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and our need to repent and leave a life of sin to follow Him. Just before this verse is recorded in Scripture, Paul writes;
For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.” Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks sick after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (1 Corinthians 1:17-25)
“The word of the cross is to them that are perishing foolishness; but on to us which are being saved it is the power of God.” It was not only in his preaching, but in his whole disposition and deportment that Paul sought to act in harmony with that weakness in which Christ was crucified. He had so identified himself with the weakness of the cross, and it’s shame, that in his whole life and conduct he would prove that in everything he sought to show forth the likeness in the spirit of the crucified Jesus. Hence he says in (1 Corinthians 2:3)….. “I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling.”
Andrew Murray
In a world that seems to be savvy with it’s communication skills, just what are we communicating to a lost and dead world concerning sin, repentance, and our desperate need for God’s Savior Jesus Christ. God help us to understand how the life of every believer must bear the hallmark, the stamp of the sanctuary – nothing but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.