Issues Facing Christians Today #1: “Wisdom or Foolishness?”

St. Aidan’s Sermons
Winnipeg, Manitoba
The Rev. Dr. Brett Cane, September 13, 2009

15th Sunday after Pentecost; 8:30 and 10:00 am Holy Communion

Issues Facing Christians Today#1: “Wisdom or Foolishness?”

Proverbs 1:20-33; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; Mark 8:27-31

Opening Prayer:

Father God, it is easy to boast about our strength and wisdom; so teach us now, by your Holy Spirit, to boast instead about your weakness and foolishness – as revealed to us through Jesus Christ crucified, our Saviour and Lord.  Amen.

Introduction

As many of you know, I spent part of my sabbatical in Tunisia, and while there, I had the privilege of meeting a few Christian workers.  One couple is from Winnipeg and they happen to be home on leave at the moment so we had a wonderful opportunity to meet again this week.  We chatted about ministry challenges and the difficulties Tunisian believers have of living as followers of Jesus Christ in a majority Muslim culture.  There are questions of whether to celebrate Muslim festivals or not, how to view the Koran, how to dress, and so on.  I think we could imagine some of the things to be faced.  But there are other deeper cultural issues such as thought patterns, worldview, and relationships.  These are much more subtle and require a far more profound re-orientation and transformation of the heart and mind.

This was the challenge facing the fledgling Christian community in first-century Corinth.  Acts 18 records how Paul founded the church there in about 50-52 AD and stayed in the city with his friends Pricilla and Aquila, fellow Jews and tentmakers, for 18 months – longer than anywhere else except Ephesus.  Later, while in Ephesus, Paul heard of problems in the church back in Corinth and wrote a number of letters – possibly four –  of which 1 Corinthians is the second (see 1 Corinthians 5:9).  His shepherd’s heart was aching for his flock as he challenged them on a number of issues.  We are going to look at some of these as we go through our Fall sermon series on 1 Corinthians and we will discover that many of these concerns are either similar to ones we face today or involve principles we need to put into practice in our own situation – and so the title of the series is: “Issues Facing Christians Today.”

This morning, as we begin our series in chapter 1, we see Paul addressing the deepest challenge the Corinthians faced – they needed a profound re-orientation and transformation of their hearts and minds.  The reason they were having problems was that they were allowing the culture around them to shape what they did and thought.  Before handling any specific issues, Paul sets before them God’s way of thinking and acting and how that should radically change the way they think and act.  So first, we will look at the cultural situation of those first-century Corinthians; then we will look at Paul’s description of God’s way of doing things – the nature of the Gospel; and finally, we will look at our own situation and how embracing God’s way of doing things can help us counteract the influence of the subtle assumptions of today’s culture.  We will see that is all about wisdom or foolishness.

The Cultural Situation of Corinth

First-century Corinth was a very large (nearly a quarter of a million people) cosmopolitan and prosperous city because it was located at the crossroads of trading routes by land and sea.  As a seaport, it was also a rough and tough place with a reputation for debauchery – there was a large temple dedicated to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, which employed 1,000 priestesses as sacred prostitutes, and also the Temple of Apollo which was the centre of homosexual practices.

Corinth was also very proud of its civic status as a Roman city on Greek soil.  The Romans had destroyed the original Greek city back in 146 BC but Julius Caesar had refounded it as a Roman colony 100 years later.  The Roman army veterans settling there ensured a Roman flavour alongside the cross-section of people (a large proportion of whom were slaves) from all races, creeds, and cultures (including Jews) drawn to the city by its commercial and other advantages.

Corinth was also known for its intellectual life.  The whole city would turn out to listen to visiting intellectuals and philosophers – people instructed in the theory and practice of wisdom and rhetoric.  These “sophists,” as they were known, were keen on making disciples for themselves and there were often disputes as to which teacher was the greatest.

It was in this city that Paul had been able to found a church.  It has been said that, “If the love of Christ Jesus could take root in Corinth, the most populated, wealthy, commercially minded and sex-obsessed city of eastern Europe, it must prove powerful anywhere.”[1] This is the cultural setting in which the first-century Corinthian church was set.

The Nature of the Gospel

And it was into this setting that Paul preached the very counter-cultural gospel.  Paul says that he preached “Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” and that he resolved to know nothing except “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 1:23; 2:2).  Jewish people saw the message about Jesus as scandalous – the Messiah they expected was to be a mighty holy warrior who would throw out the pagan Roman occupation force, not a convicted criminal suffering under God’s curse through being crucified by the very oppressors he was supposed to overthrow.  The Greeks, on the other hand, looked for a God unaffected by the pain and tumult of human affairs, One who was a sophisticated and cultured philosopher, not a God who appeared as a crude and unlettered carpenter involved in the daily routine and struggle of human life, including death.  Bishop Tom Wright sums up the seeming ridiculousness of the gospel venture:

When Paul came into a pagan city that prided itself on its intellectual and cultural life, and stood up to speak about Jesus of Nazareth, who had been crucified by the Romans but raised from the dead by God, and who was now Lord of the world, summoning people to faithful obedience, he knew what people would think.  This was, and is, the craziest message anybody could imagine.  This wasn’t a smart new philosophy; it was madness.  It wasn’t an appeal to high culture.  It was news of an executed criminal from a despised race…it (was) all about God dying on a rubbish-heap at the wrong end of the Empire.[2]

This is not wisdom – it is foolishness!

But what is foolish to humans is actually the deep wisdom of God:  “The foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength” (verse 25).  In fact, “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the strong” (verse 27).  How do we know this?  Because of Jesus:  “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (verse 24).  God’s way of salvation was through coming alongside us in Jesus and identifying with us.  In Jesus, God himself was sacrificed on the cross.  The curse he bore was the curse upon us so that those who believe might be set free from that very same curse.  It is precisely God’s vulnerability of love in giving himself up for us in love that defeated sin and death.  Jesus himself stated this upside-down principle of life through death, gain through sacrifice, when he spoke in Mark 8 about the necessity of his death and that “whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it” (Mark 8:35).  Sacrificial love is how our salvation was won and the pattern of life we are to follow.  This is “God’s secret wisdom” that Paul refers to in chapter 2 (verse 7).

Now all of this doesn’t make sense in the eyes of the world. The cultural climate of the Corinthians led them in the opposite direction: “Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom” (1: 22).  Greek religion sought that which sounded impressive intellectually and tickled people’s egos philosophically.  Jews looked for spiritual signs and demonstrations of God’s power.  The Corinthian Christians were trying to impress these groups through their “hyper-spirituality.”  They were trying to appear wise and strong. At the beginning of chapter1, Paul refers to their remarkable spiritual gifts; they had seen miracles happen – they saw themselves as a successful church.  In fact, they were so impressed by themselves that they began to divide on points of church doctrine and order which we will talk about next week.  In boasting of their accomplishments they had lost sight of the true nature of the gospel and forgotten that they had been saved not by their own religious life and practices but by God’s grace.  So four times in chapter 1 Paul speaks about God’s call: “called to be holy” (verse 2); “God, who has called you into fellowship” (verse 9); “those whom God has called” (verse 24); and “Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called” (verse 26).  He goes on to remind the Corinthians that all they had is through the grace of God, not their own efforts: “Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.  But God…chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things…to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him…Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord” (verses 26, 28-29, 31).  They themselves wee the living testimony that the gospel is all about God’s self-giving for us humans who can not save ourselves; the evidence for our being embraced by this Gospel will be demonstrated by our self-giving for others.  So right at the beginning of his letter, before Paul can address issues of divisions, discipline, and relationships, he has to restate and clarify the true nature of the Gospel.

Our Situation

What does all this say to us?  I will highlight three things:

1. Grasp the Gospel: First, ensure that you have grasped firmly the true nature of the Gospel.  The gospel is not merely assent to certain beliefs or religious practices.  The Gospel at its heart is cross-shaped: God’s power over death and sin has been released for us through his self-giving for us and our relationship with him results in our self-giving in return.  Dr. John Patrick, of the Christian Medical and Dental Association of Canada, visited the refugee camps in Zaire after the Rwandan genocide and found the people completely dispirited.  But their sorrow was not primarily over the loss of life and chaos but how they, as a Christian people could have treated one another that way.  The reality was that they had not grasped the impact of the true gospel upon their individual lives and their culture.  Dr. Patrick then taught them the Sermon on the Mount for three to six hours a day, week after week.  Now, we might say that we dot go around murdering people like the Rwandans did – but how much do we allow our own society’s values of materialism and individualism and its emphasis on status and success to shape how we live and how we relate to one another?  Compared to your non-Christian neighbour, does your faith in Jesus make any difference in how you handle your relationships, your family your finances, your career, your studies, your time, and so on?  Don’t be deceived by the world’s wisdom – look at God’s wisdom.  Grasp the full impact of the Gospel for your life.

2. Don’t be Intimidated: Second, don’t be intimidated.  One of the most striking verses for me in this letter is Paul’s acknowledgement that: “I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling” (2:3).   Just before he first visited Corinth, Paul had been in Athens where he had not met with much success; he was depressed and discouraged.  Coming to Corinth – a big cosmopolitan city – Paul felt intimidated.  It is easy to get intimidated because of our faith – we might appear foolish or naïve and we want to look good and intelligent in front of fellow workers or your professors, etc.  Sometimes we feel that if only we had money or prestige that would get people to pay attention to us.  Then hear these words: “Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong” (verses 26-27).  You think you are a nobody but Jesus has made you a somebody!  Many of the things that matter in the world’s eyes don’t matter to God.  On the other hand, the things that seem insignificant and pointless to society often mean a great deal to God – including you!  Don’t be ashamed of the cross-shaped faith even though others may call it old-fashioned or unsophisticated.  Don’t be intimidated.

3. Live out the Faith: The third thing is to live out the faith.  You do that primarily through loving self-giving – life through death, strength through weakness.  The Corinthians had impressive proofs and signs but they were not living out the faith.  There is nothing wrong with demonstrations of God’s power – Paul speaks about it in these chapters – but that power is only released when God is recognized as your ultimate strength – not by eloquent words or persuasive arguments or impressive shows of spiritual knowledge but by a life lived humbly in simple childlike trust.  How you treat others – as God’s somebodies – is a test of the genuineness of your faith.  The prime place for this to be seen is in the church – the body of Christ’s people.  It is here that the Corinthians faced their greatest challenge to live out the faith.  It is ours as well.  Live out the faith – especially in relationships with your brothers and sisters – we will discover the way this works out in specific situations as we continue our journey through 1 Corinthians in the weeks to come.

Conclusion

God’s way of doing things is cross-shaped.

Grasp the Gospel – let God’s wisdom shape your life, not the world’s values.

Don’t be intimidated – let God’s view of you liberate you to speak and live the truth.

Live out the faith – let God’s pattern of the cross be your model in your relationships with others, especially within the church.

[2] N.T. Wright, Paul for Everyone – I Corinthians. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), pgs. 12, 13.