Our text this morning is 1st Corinthians, the second chapter,

verses 1 through 5.

If you're using a Bible from the pew in front of you,

you can find that text on page 992.

When I came to you brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom, for I decided to know nothing

among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling and my speech

and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power that your

faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

I think what Paul is doing in these five verses

is showing from his own experience why there is so much boasting and pride and divisiveness at Corinth,

namely that the cross of Christ has been bracketed out of the present, relegated

to the past so that it has no present crucifying effect on the lives of these people.

They are people who have advanced beyond the cross.

Christ may have had to appear weak,

Christ may have had to look foolish,

Christ may have had to be humiliated but not us because he purchased for

us something more. We are kings, we are filled, we are wise, we are strong, and Paul

wrestles with all his might in these first chapters of First Corinthians to show them they're making a terrible mistake.

I want you to look at one of the places outside our text where Paul wrestles

ironically with this issue. Look at chapter 4, if you have a Bible versus 8 to 10 and I'm going to try to use my tone of voice to

interpret the irony of this

this text.

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