And I, brethren, when
I came to you,
did not come with
excellence of speech
or of wisdom declaring to you
the testimony of God.
Or I determined not
to know anything among you
except Jesus Christ
and Him crucified.
1 Corinthians 2: 1 --
2
As a
Christian we are confronted by the culture of this world and its pressures to
conform to the ideologies talked and practiced by those who will not believe
upon our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To practice our Christian faith takes courage and conviction, more than
that, we are to be committed to God and His Son Jesus Christ and this we can do
by the power of the Holy Spirit that dwells in all Christians. One of the most harm done to Christians is
to make them lose faith in their ability to remain committed. We see this lack of commitment by the not
honoring of vows and oaths in such things as in marriage with easy divorces in great
number that are occurring in the Christian church. Divorces done by such things, as irreconcilable differences, and
those irreconcilable differences not based upon God's Word. It takes courage to holdfast against wrongs
to our convictions and to our commitments and yet this is what God has called
us to be as his ambassador and witness to His gospel. We see the world as one that is so troubled and filled with
terror from almost every angle that we become timid and allow those things
quiet as from speaking the gospel. Paul
wrote to the Corinthians approximately 55 A.D., and this is only some 20 -- 22
years from the crucifixion of Jesus Christ: not a long time. Paul called by Jesus Christ on his way to
cause more persecution and terror to the Christians in recognizing that the one
with whom he was persecuting wives gone, Jesus Christ, the one who came, died
upon a cross and was the promised Messiah, in a short time began to preach the
gospel. Imagine this, a person who is
well-known for his opposition to the Christianity that was now being formed in
many churches and cities that many people would be afraid and would have a hard
time putting their faith into what he was now preaching. When Paul entered into the city of Corinth there
he would meet a bustling city full of commerce, many people going to and fro
and many people who were involved in the worship of Apollos and Aphrodite, a licentious
people who were enjoying their wealth and their world standing as an important
city within the Roman Empire. This was
a port city and as we can testify to by many testimonies given over the years
port cities are not known for being as a church rather more of a place where
anything goes, a place where there would be much debauchery, drunkenness, and
prostitution. This is what Paul met
when he came there in 51A.D and could cause great fear to speak out against
such things that were being practiced in this city. This can also be our objection in this day when we are faced with
most things that are in our present-day culture that are in opposition to the
gospel. People are not willing to
listen to what you may have to say in regards to Jesus Christ and
salvation. But as Paul said he did not
come to them with a great excellency of speech even though he was a scholar and
an orator. Paul was not saying these
things out as some abject humility, what he was saying is this; if he came with
great excellency of speech to impress people he would rather veil the power of
God for he did not come to impress people with his excellency of speech. Many people even today are enthralled that
are involved in some forms of group euphoria because they have become so
impressed by a person's excellency of speech.
To believe in Jesus Christ is a miracle that only produced by the
efficacy of redemption and not by some impressive speech, or by some wooing,
and winning, rather only by the sheer unaided power of God. God redeems and sanctifies, calls, and
enables, and this by His creative power giving faith for a person to respond to
the preaching of the Gospel. It is
never because of some personality of a preacher. When a person is wooed to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ to
be impressiveness and exquisite diction with impressive an excellent words all
that is being done is a hindrance of the gospel of God. It must be remembered, a preacher is a
representative of God. The preacher is
there to present the gospel of God. If
we are being flattered by what we do or why what we hear and if I think by
preaching the gospel and I should be flattered, then all I am a coming is a
trader to Jesus Christ because I would be preventing the creative power of
redemption from doing its work. Paul
did not come to the Corinthians and he has written those things which we now
have in our hands for us to read and as he did to the Corinthians he does for
us, he comes without the excellence of speech or the wisdom of this world. Paul comes to us with one thing and one
thing only, and that is the testimony of God in the fact that Jesus Christ
crucified and is the Savior, the promised one when God gave the promised to
Adam. Our faith should not be in
anything other than the wisdom of God and the power of God. Anything else in this may be and is often
misused to mislead people to do things that are not of God and often are
nothing more than ways to fatten the wallets of those who are preaching such
things that are in opposition to what Paul is telling us to do and not to
do. Who are you following? Is it some preacher? Is that a man from the past like John Wesley,
or John Calvin, or Martin Luther, or Augustine, or in any other person? Are you willing to test them with the Scriptures
rightly interpreted by allowing scripture to interpret scripture and not man to
interpret scripture? How important is
this: the most important as the culture of this world had invaded the
Corinthian church it can also see that there has been an invasion into the
modern-day church as well. Purity,
purity, purity, this is what we must ensure so that we, and our children and
others are not being led off into some form of false teaching. This is our responsibility; this should be
our curry to and conviction to holdfast to our commitment.
With all of
this in mind we will not enter into an in-depth study of this book and allow
scripture to interpret scripture so that we can change anything that needs to
be changed from our inside that is making us to practice things outside that
are not of God. Paul is going to tell
us that we need to purge out the old leaven, and I hope this is what you're
willing to do so that you are the witness, and massacre, of the Gospel of our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Do not say, "A conspiracy,"
concerning
all that this
people call a conspiracy, nor be
afraid of
their threats,
nor be troubled. The
LORD of hosts,
Him you
shall hallow;
let Him be your fear, and let Him
be your
dread.
Isaiah 8:12 -- 13
Gird yourselves, speak the gospel
Richard L. Crumb
No comments:
Post a Comment