#DailyDevotion The Message Of The Cross Is Foolish To Those Who Are Perishing

1 Corinthians 1:18–26 ¹⁸The message of the cross is something foolish to those who perish, but it is God’s power to us who are saved. ¹⁹The Bible says: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and defeat the intelligence of the intelligent.” ²⁰ Where is the wise man? Where is the Bible scholar? Where is the debater of our time? Hasn’t God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹Since by God’s wisdom the world by its wisdom didn’t get to know God, God decided to use the foolishness of our preaching to save those who believe. ²²Now that Jews ask for miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, ²³we preach a crucified Christ. The Jews stumble over Him, the Greeks think He’s something foolish, ²⁴but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, He is Christ, God’s power and God’s wisdom. ²⁵God’s foolishness is wiser than men’s wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than men’s strength.

Well it was true in Paul’s day and it is true in our day. One need only peruse Facebook or Twitter or any other social media platform and you will find those who are not born from above making fun of Christians and brandishing us as fools for believing in Jesus. At least the most knowledgeable of them will at least admit from the historical record and archaeological evidence, Jesus of Nazareth actually existed. But some still doubt even that.

As in Paul’s day it is also true in our own, for it is a timeless truth stuck smack dab in time, the right time, the message of the cross is God’s power to save people. While mankind most certainly deserves to be damned to all eternity for the least of our offenses, Adam and Eve died for rebelling against God and eating a piece of fruit, the God of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments doesn’t desire us to perish eternally. He’d rather make us his children, give us eternal life and give us his kingdom. That is the message of the cross. God sent his only begotten Son into the world to bear the sins of all mankind, become sin, and suffer in himself the due penalty for that sin. He has made both an atonement and a propitiation for our sins. On the cross, God blames God for all the world’s problems and God takes them all into himself.

This is the wisdom of God and the intelligence of God. The world calls our Father in heaven a cruel father for doing that to his own son. Yet the Son, Jesus Christ, but for the joy set before him endured the cross and its shame. Sounds like foolishness to the world. It is a scandal, a stumbling block to the Jews. Jesus Christ and him crucified is God’s power and God’s wisdom to save us, to save you. Through the cross of Jesus, his suffering and death, you gave the life, righteousness, and holiness of God. It is simply this word of Jesus the Holy Spirit uses to convert us from unbelievers to believers, from children of the devil to children of God, from those dead in their sins to being alive in Christ.

All wise Father in heaven, you sent your son into our fallen world to suffer death on the cross so that we, your creatures would escape the wrath to come and inherit eternal life. Continually give us this word so we may be confirmed in this wisdom and by your power be made born from above in your image and likeness. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.