Read for This Week’s Study: 1 Cor. 1:17-31, Col. 1:20, 1 Pet. 2:24, Acts 13:16-47, 1 Cor. 2:1-5.

Memory Text: “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” (1 Corinthians 1:18, NIV).

The Question: What does a person do when what they imagined or hoped for ends up being quite different from the reality that they are experiencing?

The lesson this week asks us to look at the idea or concept that formed the main point of focus and emphasis the apostle Paul dwelt on as he set about his ministry to those in Corinth. That main point of focus was the cross of Christ. Paul’s discussion about the cross is interesting in that he says it was a bunch of foolishness to the Greeks but also a stumbling block to the Jews while at the same time it was the power of God for our salvation. Several aspects of this invite our consideration.

First, we will consider the matter of the cross being foolishness to the Greeks. Why would this be so? The answer to this question comes from developing an understanding of the cross and what it was used for and what it meant in Roman society. History tells us that being crucified on the cross was one of the most terrible ways to die ever invented by humans. Dying by crucifixion meant a slow, agonizing death that came usually by way of exhaustion and asphyxiation resulting from the muscles in the body becoming too tired to breathe and so sustain life. We are given to understand that people who were crucified were hung so that in order to breathe, they had to stand themselves up as far as they could in order to relax the diaphragm, something necessary for breathing. Every time they stood themselves up, they generated a lot of pain in their feet and arms. Over a period of time – usually a day or two – they became exhausted and could no longer rise up to breathe so died from a lack of oxygen. This method of execution was thought to be so terrible that it was illegal to crucify a Roman citizen. Crucifixion was to be used only for traitors, foreigners, and slaves. Dying by crucifixion placed a person at the very bottom of society, to be forever scorned and disdained. As the lesson noted, Cicero, a pagan Roman writer and orator, had told the Roman people to keep the idea of the cross, as a means of punishment, far from their minds. His statement illustrates the contempt with which the Romans had held the cross. It was so bad that they should not even think about it.

The official lesson had a paragraph that described this situation well.

“Think about Paul’s situation in this city. He comes to a place that prided itself on its own so-called knowledge and wisdom and cultural sophistication. And, in this context, he talks about a Galilean Jew, Jesus of Nazareth, who had been crucified by the Romans, and then raised from the dead-all in order to pay for not only their sins but for the sins of the world. Can this guy be serious? Who was he kidding? This wasn’t some deep new philosophical concept, either, that could be parsed and analyzed by philosophical tools; it seemed to be lunacy, nonsense, nothing that any smart and educated Corinthian could take seriously.” (p. 41, 42).

In light of this, for Christians to then laud a person who had been crucified and to say he was their Savior, put an enormous stain on credibility in the Roman mind. In the mind of the Romans, making this kind of claim was beyond ridiculous. And then to make the claim that the crucified person came back from the dead by way of a resurrection, put Christian claims into the category of the ludicrous as far as the Romans were concerned. At first glance, to them Christianity was worthy only of contempt or disdain. It was only after a more careful look, that the Christian faith became viable.

To the Jewish mind, disdain came from the idea that a peasant carpenter from a disreputable town, who gained a following, who said things to unsettle the status quo, who finally died at the hands of the Romans, also strained credibility. For some reason, the popular concept of a coming Messiah envisioned by the people back then, was for someone who would come in a much grander mode. The contrast between Jesus and the hoped-for Messiah was great enough that, at first glance, the Jewish community found Christianity unattractive, too. This humble man who lived outside of respectable community simply could not be the Messiah. It was into this dynamic that Paul came intent on preaching the gospel of the cross.

There is room here for some thought and discussion about the way we react when there is a great distance between reality and what we imagine the situation to be. The distance between an expectation and the reality it corresponds to can be very difficult to manage. And the bigger the difference between the two, the more disillusionment and pain a person feels. This is a feature of many areas of human life!

Having noted that the gospel was foolishness to the Greeks, and a stumbling block to the Jews, Paul went on to say very forthrightly that the cross was the power of God for our salvation. The cross was where the love of God was displayed, where the humility of Christ was to be seen, where a basis for reconciliation between God and man was to be found, and where the debt caused by sin was paid. So, what looked like foolishness or a hindrance to belief was in fact the genius of God on display, the very means by way of which sin will be defeated.

Here is cause to reflect on the fact that the ways of God are different from the ways of humans. What shall we make of this?

• Is what Paul says about foolishness vs. the cross of Christ reason enough for us to dismiss the whole idea of using philosophy when trying to convey the gospel?
• What about the cross makes it so attractive and powerful in the lives of those who believe?