God's Wisdom in Evangelism
God’s Wisdom in Evangelism
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
Paul was addressing the carnal and divisive Corinthian church in an attempt to correct the divisiveness. Thus far he informed them of his involvement in their lives and the difference between human and divine wisdom. He is distinctly aware of the difference between human logic and divine wisdom. What the church needed was to repudiate the wisdom that appealed to the carnal nature and caused divisiveness, and embrace the wisdom of God. He begins to describe God’s wisdom in three areas. The first area Divine wisdom was used is in evangelism. In order to do this, Paul described his evangelism to the Corinthians. He asserted four things about his evangelism.
The Effective Evangelist
I. Doesn’t Rely Upon the Form (1, 4)
A. Effectiveness of language
Paul claimed he didn’t have excellency of speech when he preached to them. He was talking about human wisdom sometimes called rhetorical method.
B. Skill of Argumentation
He also didn’t rely upon his skill of argumentation. God has endowed some men with tremendous skill of argumentation. While one should take advantage of the natural skills that God has given them, we should rely upon our skill only.
C. Worldly Wisdom
The Gnostics beguiled men with enticing words, but Paul did not. Enticing conveys the idea of persuasive words used by debaters and salesmen. Paul would have none of that.
In his second letter to that young minister, Paul solemnly charged him “in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus” to “preach the word” (2 Tim. 4:1–2). I cannot comprehend how any man who calls himself a minister of God can do anything but preach the Word of God and be ready to do it “in season and out of season” (v 2). Many congregations, however, do not want their pastors to preach only the Word. They “will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires” (v. 3). As one commentator has observed, “In periods of unsettled faith, skepticism, and mere curious speculation in matters of religion, teachers of all kinds swarm like the flies in Egypt. The demand creates the supply. The hearers invite and shape their own preachers. If the people desire a calf to worship, a ministerial calf–maker is readily found.” Some people, including some immature believers, will go from church to church looking for the right preacher. Unfortunately their idea of “right” preaching is not sound biblical exposition but interesting observations and suggestions based on the preacher’s personal philosophy. They are not looking for a word from God to believe but for a word from man to consider.
ILL: A certain church had a beautiful stained-glass window just behind the pulpit. It depicted Jesus Christ on the cross. One Sunday there was a guest minister who was much smaller than the regular pastor. A little girl listened to the guest for a time, then turned to her mother and asked, “Where is the man who usually stands there so we can’t see Jesus?”
II. Proclaims the Right Message (2)
Paul determined that his content in evangelism would be the simple, clear, frank, message of “Jesus Christ and him crucified.” He was presenting the person of Christ, including his deity, humanity, and Messiahship and his redemptive work, involving the death and resurrection. Acts 18:4-5 tells us that Paul reasoned, persuaded and testified . He didn’t just merely state the facts; his message conveyed spiritual Biblical and logical arguments.
He was not interested in discussing men’s ideas or insights, his own or those of anyone else. He would proclaim nothing but Jesus Christ, the crucified, risen, and redeeming Jesus Christ. He did not preach Jesus simply as the perfect teacher or the perfect example or the perfect Man—though He was all of these. The foundation of all of his preaching was Jesus as the divine Savior.
This is the paradox of evangelism. The paradox is the preaching of the feeble and stupid message of a crucified Christ, which nevertheless proves to have a power and a wisdom no human eloquence possesses, since it is the power and wisdom of God himself.
III. Proclaims in the Right Manner (3-4)
Three prepositional phrases describe the threefold manner in which Paul appeared at Corinth. They convey two truths about our witness that we must constantly keep in mind.
A. Recognizing our frailty
We must recognize our own human insufficiency for the task at hand. We come as human to human, expecting that the words we speak will change the heart. The words we are speaking considered “weak” by men. This drives us to our knees in dependence upon God. In truth the words are very powerful, because they are ordained by a powerful God.
B. Recognizing the importance of our message
We also need to recognize the importance of the message we are preaching. It is an awesome responsibility to preach the Gospel, by preaching I mean witness to another person.
Paul was testimony to this attitude. He was fearful and trembling only in the sense of being deeply anxious that the gospel somehow find root even in this most unpromising of places. He was not fearful for his own life or safety or of the gospel’s having lost its power. He was fearful only of its being rejected, and of the terrible consequences of that rejection. Surely he also feared his own inadequacy and sin which could weaken his ministry.
IV. Relying upon the Power of God (4b-5)
Paul said he came in the demonstration of Spirit and Power. The demonstration he is talking about is the way the message of the Gospel gripped its hearers and affected change in their hearts. The Corinthians themselves were the examples. They were part of the most corrupt culture in the Roman Empire, but the message of the Gospel gripped their hearts and God gave them the gift of the Spirit. The proof of the power of the Gospel was not mere words, but the Corinthians themselves.
Here we get heart of the wisdom of God in evangelism. The power of God does not rely upon the eloquence of the preacher or in the persuasiveness of his argument. You don’t need to worry about your wisdom, your presentation, or your eloquence. Your primary concern should be in the power of God working through you as your preach Christ and him crucified.
Our faith is not in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
Charles Spurgeon said: The power that is in the Gospel does not lie in the eloquence of the preacher, otherwise men would be the converters of souls, nor does it lie in the preacher’s learning, otherwise it would consist in the wisdom of men. We might preach until our tongues rotted, till we would exhaust our lungs and die, but never a soul would be converted unless the Holy Spirit be with the Word of God to give it the power to convert the soul.
Gordon Fee said this: The danger always lies in letting the form and content get in the way of what should be the single concern: the gospel proclaimed through human weakness but accompanied by the powerful work of the Spirit so that lives are changed through a divine-human encounter.