The Foolish Gospel of God

The good news is that the good news doesn’t hinge on the put-together-ness of the preacher.

Sir James Thornhill, “Paul preaching in the Areopagus”

The apostle Paul was never one to mince words. He was what you might call a “straight shooter,” so much so that even when the highly-regarded apostle Peter was out of line, the former Pharisee did not hesitate to tell him so, to his face (Gal. 2:11). This is just who Paul was — he was a sinner who was entirely convinced of the gospel of grace in Jesus Christ. I point this out because, out of all the surprising or shocking things Paul wrote in his epistles, what he says to the Corinthians might just take the cake, as he invites a whole congregation of believers to become as fools (1 Cor. 3:18). This, we can well imagine, did not sit too well with them, nor would it sit too well with us were we on the receiving end of such counsel.

1. Wise in Whose Eyes?

Much like the Corinthians, ours is a society that values wisdom, efficiency, and eloquence above everything else. The well-spoken and well-adjusted are the ones who get all the attention and acclaim. There is no high school superlative honoring the “most ordinary” or “most foolish” in the class; the world belongs to the best and the brightest. They are the ones who are “most likely to succeed.” There is, I think, a direct correlation between this mindset and the ongoing scandal of faked college transcripts and inflated SAT scores that have rocked the education marketplace in recent memory. It would seem that the allure of being seen as “wise” in the eyes of the world proves too strong to resist, both for institutions and individuals — a fact that is true not only for students who are desperate to escape a troublesome childhood, but also for the upper echelon of society.

Nevertheless, where the “wisdom of the world” prioritizes degrees, diplomas, academic excellence, and a dash of eloquence to go along with all of that, the apostle Paul encourages those in the Corinthian congregation to prioritize something entirely different — namely, to become as fools, for, in so doing, they may become wise. Of course, Paul isn’t dismissing the benefits of higher education outright. Not in the least. As one of the most well-trained and highly educated voices in the early church, Paul was purposefully subverting the Corinthians’ expectations by exposing just how flimsy their desire to seem “wise in this age” really was. He intended to “omit,” R. C. H. Lenski comments, “even in his own mind, any addition to the gospel, any admixture, any sugar-coating of it by human, worldly wisdom.”¹ Ambling after what men call “wisdom” was to claw after that which, in God’s eyes, was nothing but folly (1 Cor. 3:19).

2. No Eloquence Needed

The metropolis of Corinth was a sprawling Roman colony, a port city with a deep connection to the ancient trade market. Corinth was a thoroughfare, an ancient melting pot of ideas, philosophies, and religions. It was a city built on promiscuity and pluralism, which meant that if one wanted to ascend in such a society, one had to know how to talk without offending everyone else. Otherwise, one risks being labeled a bigot or a narrow-minded fool, which was akin to a death sentence. The Corinthians prioritized eloquence, wisdom, and the rhetorical polish of the Greek orators. They prized speakers who “looked the part,” who talked well, dressed well, and even carried themselves well. They’d fawn over the latest TED Talk presentation or whoever the hottest conference speaker was.

It is this perspective that Paul puts in his crosshairs. After all, what was the point of all that wisdom and all those words? Could rhetoric alone save you? Could it offer you the words of life? Could it give you what your soul most desperately needs? The answer, of course, is a resounding no. The wisdom of this age, no matter how well polished or neatly packaged, is a terrible savior, which is what Paul says when he reiterates his evangelistic purpose when he first arrived in Corinth itself. In his own words, he wasn’t sent there for any other purpose than to speak good news (euangelizomai), to announce God’s message of God’s salvation to all the sinners of the world (1 Cor. 1:17). He was a herald, not a lecturer. In short, his was a message that wasn’t freighted with “words of eloquent wisdom.”

What’s apparent is that this was an intentional choice on Paul’s part, as he reiterates in the opening of Chapter 2. “And I, when I came to you, brothers,” he divulges, “did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:1–2). Paul could have very easily played the part by fitting in with all the other respected orators of the day, but he made a conscious decision not to because those “words of eloquent wisdom” do nothing but divest the word of the cross of its effectiveness (1 Cor. 1:17). Elaborate speeches, where every pause is predetermined and every word is overanalyzed, might sound impressive and garner applause, but they are hollow if that’s all folks are left with.

What good would it do if you exited the doors of the church thinking, “My, what a good sermon that was,” but still unclear on what the gospel is, who Jesus is, and knowing that your sins are the very ones Jesus died for?

3. Power Through the Preacher’s Weakness

When Paul first set foot in Corinth, no one thought much of him. There was nothing overly impressive about him. He was weary and worn down, physically and emotionally, following the events at the Areopagus (Acts 17:16–34), where he engaged with the Athenian intelligentsia. After conversing and reasoning with their philosophers and teachers in a sermon of the highest quality, during which he even quotes from one of their poets (Acts 17:28), Paul was met with nothing but scorn, derision, and laughter (Acts 17:32). Not much was different once he sailed across the bay to the Corinthians, where he was met with even more opposition, resistance, and disdain, at the hands of his own countrymen, no less (Acts 18:6).

It goes without saying that Paul’s admission of his own weakness, fear, and trembling (1 Cor. 2:3) emerged out of one of the lowest moments in his ministerial career. But notice who showed up for him at this precise moment:

And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.” And he stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them. (Acts 18:9–11)

None other than Christ the Lord met his troubled apostle in a vision, in which he instilled in him the determination to go on preaching “that the Christ was Jesus” (Acts 18:5), which is exactly what Paul did for another eighteen months. Accordingly, when Paul discloses his decision to “know nothing among [them] except Jesus Christ and him crucified,” he’s giving them and us a subtle nod as to where that determination came from. It didn’t emerge from his own intellect or wisdom. It wasn’t a result of his superior reasoning or any amount of self-originating fortitude he could conjure. This determination came on the heels of coming face-to-face with his own weakness and limitations.

If the successful advance of the gospel was tethered to his ability, wisdom, or wit, this would be the result: weakness and fear, and much trembling. But the good news is that the good news doesn’t hinge on the put-together-ness of the preacher. The Lord didn’t deposit the right amount of wisdom or rhetorical polish that would allow Paul to make it through the next year and a half. Instead, he reiterated his word of promise to him. “Don’t be afraid, for I am with you.” The life and longevity of the church, let alone the gospel, weren’t on Paul’s shoulders. Rather, it was precisely amid his weaknesses that God deployed the power of his Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 2:4–5) to demonstrate the life-giving dynamism of his word of grace and promise.

4. The Folly That Saves

Consequently, Paul didn’t arrive in Corinth looking to impress a bunch of people and get another notch in his belt, nor did he go there looking to increase his platform or showcase his rhetorical pizzazz. He wasn’t interested in striving for mass appeal. In fact, he was thoroughly disinterested in folks looking at him, as if he were the answer (cf. 1 Cor. 1:10–13; 3:4). “It was not his ambition,” writes Steven W. Smith, “for the Corinthians to know how much he knew. That was beside the point. His ambition was for them to know Christ alone.”² Paul’s overriding aim was for the Corinthians to be enthralled by Christ alone, which is why his message centered entirely on the Crucified One. He came with only the word of the cross in his hands and on his heart — a message that, by his own admission, sounds more than a little foolish:

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God . . . Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (1 Cor. 1:18–25)

As Paul conveys, the message of the Christian faith sounds like madness “to those who are perishing.” Why? Because its fundamental announcement says that the long-promised Messiah, the one who was said to come to make things right, is none other than the one nailed to a Roman cross. Thus, where the Jews might have looked for hope in some miraculous token of spiritual fulfillment, where the Greeks sought to find hope via their own rationale, and where the Romans looked for hope and glory in feats of power, strength, and honor, God’s message to the world confounds all of that by declaring that it is precisely in the bloodied, battered, and bruised body of his Son on the cross that the world’s hope of reconciliation and redemption is found. “God’s wisdom,” David Prior says, “is seen in the Messiah hanging on a tree.”³

Human reason, the “wisdom of this age,” says that this is utter foolishness. What fools Christians are for putting all their hope and faith in a blasphemer, a criminal! To which Paul might’ve replied, “Yes, indeed, let us all become fools for Christ.” “Paul,” David Prince once wrote, “was perfectly content to be called an unsophisticated fool for Christ’s sake.”⁴ For all those who valued how well spoken you were and how well put together you were, Paul seemed to be the opposite of all those qualities. But while he might’ve been the opposite of what the Corinthians wanted, he had exactly what they needed — namely, the word that makes sinners alive and eternally wise: Christ and him crucified. As foolish as this might sound, this is the word that the church needs to hear over and over and over again.

1. R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Paul’s First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1963), 89.

2. Steven W. Smith, Dying to Preach: Embracing the Cross in the Pulpit (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2009), 44.

3. David Prior, The Message of 1 Corinthians: Life in the Local Church, The Bible Speaks Today Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2020), 32.

4. David Prince, “We Need Fools in the Pulpit,” edited by Jason K. Allen, But We Preach Christ Crucified: Preachers on Preaching (Kansas City, MO: Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2015), 22.