#DailyDevotion We Preach A Crucified Messiah For Redemption, Salvation & Judgment
1 Cor. 1:22-25 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 we certainly see two groups of people Paul encountered as he evangelized the Roman empire. We have the Jews who ask for miraculous signs. They asked Jesus for miracles and signs and he said wasn’t giving them on except for the sign of Jonah, i.e. his resurrection on the third day. Jesus does have seven signs in John and they didn’t believe those signs or works either. That pretty much tells you their unbelief is on purpose because the signs were there. The apostles confirmed their witness of Jesus with signs. No sign will work or miracle will work if they opposed to Christ message and work anyway. People today also asks for signs, wonders and miracles and they reject God and Christ because they refuse to consent to these people’s wishes and whims.
The Greeks seek wisdom. They want to make sense of the world. Particularly, they want it to make sense to them. You can read the Greek philosophers and may find some helpful things in them. Marcus Aurelius’ meditations has some wisdom that translates into living today. You can even find some wisdom in “The Art of War” or “The Prince.” But the wisdom of the world has nothing on the Wisdom of God. It is written in Isaiah 55, 8“My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not My ways,” says the LORD. 9“As high as heaven is above the earth, so far are My ways above your ways and My thoughts above your thoughts.”
The Wisdom of God is above and beyond all the wisdom of this world has to offer. In fact, it may well go against what much of the world has to offer. Love your enemies. Forgive those who sin against you. God forgives you by sacrificing his Son on the cross. God does everything necessary to reconcile you to him in Jesus. God works through the Word and Sacraments (Baptism, Absolution and the LORD’s Supper) to regenerate your heart, make you one with him and preserve and sustain you in the faith. This is foolishness to the world, to the Greek. Forgiveness, mercy, kindness, love, these all flow to us through the work of Jesus in his life, death, and resurrection. That God would choose to use just these means to save us and accept only faith in his only-begotten Son as our righteousness before him just doesn’t make sense in a tit for tat world. The things Christians do in response to God’s love they think are required by God for salvation. They cannot see them as God’s life working in them.
Yet this foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom. This weakness perceived by men in the Gospel of Jesus Christ is more powerful than they can ever imagine because it raises us from the dead spiritually now and bodily on the Last Day. It makes us into new people.
Heavenly Father, grant us your Holy Spirit so we may perceive your wisdom and strength in the proclamation of our crucified and risen LORD, Jesus Christ and put all our faith in him unto life everlasting. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.