Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro:

Transition:

Context:

Fee puts it this way: “A God discovered by human wisdom will be both a projection of human fallenness and a source of human pride, and this constitutes the worship of the creature, not the Creator.”

Thus, the wise and the powerful are in no better position to know God than anyone else.

In fact, their self-sufficiency and supposed wisdom stands in the way

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Here this passage is all about CONTRASTS… when you put two opposites next to each it highlights the difference…

Wise and fool… we think we can recognize foolishness… I wonder about wisdom (hyrogliphics, what do we have?

memes… )

Wisdom and folly… God says what He calls wisdom the world thinks is folly… and that makes sense because the ultimate wisdom of God is the cross of Christ!!!

In his own wisdom man inevitably exchanges the truth of God for a lie and worships the creature rather than the Creator (Rom.

1:25).

Man’s wisdom is founded in his own will and it is always directed toward the fulfilling of his own will.

Consequently it is always against God’s wisdom and God’s will.

Human wisdom (“cleverness of speech”) will always make God’s wisdom (“the gospel” and “the cross of Christ”) void (1 Cor.

1:17).

Men have, of course, made remarkable discoveries and accomplished amazing feats over the centuries, especially in the last fifty years or so.

Science and technology have developed countless products, machines, instruments, medicines, and procedures that have made great contributions to human welfare.

It is also true that becoming a Christian does not give us all the answers to everything—certainly not in the areas of science, electronics, math, or any other field of strictly human learning.

Many nonbelievers are more educated, brilliant, talented, and experienced than many believers.

If we want our car fixed we go to the best mechanic we can find, even if he is not a Christian.

If we need an operation we go to the best surgeon.

If we want to get an education we try to go the school that has the best faculty in the field in which we want to study.

As long as they are used properly and wisely, medicine and technology and science and all such fields of human learning and achievement can be of great value.

Christians should thank God for them.

But if we want answers to what life is about—answers about where we came from, where we are going, and why we are here, about what is right and what is wrong—then human learning cannot help us.

If we want to know the ultimate meaning and purpose of human life, and the source of happiness, joy, fulfillment, and peace, we have to look beyond what even the best human minds can discover.

Man’s attempts to find such answers on his own are doomed to fail.

He does not have the resources even to find the answers about himself, much less about God.

In regard to the most important truths—those about human nature, sin, God, morality and ethics, the spirit world, the transformation and future of human life—philosophy is bankrupt.

The cross sets the whole world into two catagories… being saved and perishing....

Human wisdom cannot understand the cross.

Peter, for example, did not understand the cross when he first heard Jesus speak of it.

In fact Peter took Jesus “aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord!

This shall never happen to You’ ” (Matt.

16:22).

Peter’s own understanding about the Messiah had no place for the cross.

He thought the Messiah would soon set up an earthly kingdom and that everything would be pleasant for His followers.

But Peter’s wisdom was contrary to God’s wisdom, and anything contrary to God’s wisdom works for Satan.

Jesus’ reply to His disciple was quick and sharp: “Get behind Me, Satan!

You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s” (v.

23).

When the soldiers came to the garden to arrest Jesus, Peter still did not understand.

He still tried to interfere with God’s plan.

Drawing his sword, he cut off a slave’s ear—for which Jesus again rebuked him (John 18:10–11).

Only after the resurrection and ascension did Peter understand and accept the cross (Acts 2:23–24; 3:13–15).

Paul was in Athens before Corinth and used philosphers words… had little success some say thats why when he went to Corinth he decided just Jesus…

To the natural mind, whether Jewish or Gentile, the cross is offensive and unacceptable.

But to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

All men are either in the process of being saved (salvation present is not complete until the redemption of the body—Rom.

8:23; 13:11) or of being destroyed.

One’s view of the cross determines which.

The second-century philosopher Celsus, who made a career out of attacking Christianity, wrote, “God is good and beautiful and happy, and if in that which is most beautiful and best, if then he descends to man it involves change for him, and a change from good to bad, from beautiful to ugly, from happiness to unhappiness, from what is best to what is worst, and God would never accept such a change.”

The idea of the incarnation, not to mention the crucifixion, was utter folly to Greek thinking.

To those rationalists nothing could be more absurd than the idea of an incarnate God giving Himself to be crucified in order to secure salvation, holiness, and eternal life for a fallen world.

1 Chron story… I don’t know BUT we look to you… Man have I learned that one… Idk but I look to you… teenagers, idk but I look to you… career choices idk but I look to you… tragedy in life idk but I look to you… Think of battle stories you know from OT Jericho… (Walls down…) how about Gideon… Uses weak...

God continually told Israel that He would fight for her.

All she had to do was trust and obey.

That is why, when Israel went into battle, a choir singing the Lord’s praises often preceded the army.

Men are all inclined to try to solve their problems and fight their battles by their own ingenuity and in their own power.

But human ingenuity and power only get in God’s way.

Men’s own efforts hinder God in His work rather than help Him.

“There is a way which seems right to a man,” Solomon tells us, “but its end is the way of death” (Prov.

14:12).

One of the things that keeps many people away from Christ, away from the Bible, and away from salvation is their disagreement with the gospel.

It just does not fit their way of thinking.

Even when they know their own philosophy or their own religion is shaky, they often would rather put their heads in the sand and hope for the best than simply take God at His word.

This is the willful ignorance of unbelief described by Paul in Romans 1:18–23.

Pretending to be wise, such men are fools.

The CROSS of CHRIST is the WISDOM of GOD

But the prophecy also had a more immediate significance and fulfillment, which serves to illustrate its future and ultimate fulfillment.

When Isaiah made the prophecy, Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, was planning to conquer Judah.

The Lord told His prophet not to worry or fear, because the king’s plan would fail.

But it would not fail because of the strength of Judah’s army or because of the strategy of King Hezekiah and his advisors.

“The wisdom of their wise men [would] perish, and the discernment of their discerning men [would] be concealed” (Isa.

29:14).

Judah would be saved solely by God’s power, with no human help.

He destroyed 185,000 men of the Assyrian army with just one angel (37:36).

The full account is given in 2 Kings 18–19.

That God would take human form, be crucified, and raised in order to provide for man’s forgiveness of sin and entrance into heaven is an idea far too simple, foolish, and humbling for the natural man to accept.

That one man (even the Son of God) could die on a piece of wood on a nondescript hill in a nondescript part of the world and thereby determine the destiny of every person who has ever lived seems stupid.

It allows no place for man’s merit, man’s attainment, man’s understanding, or man’s pride.

This word of the cross is foolishness (moria, from which we get moron).

It is moronic, absolute nonsense, to unbelievers who rely on their own wisdom—to those who are perishing.

That phrase is a graphic description of Christ rejectors, who are in the process of being destroyed in eternal judgment

The conjunction “for” ties this verse to the preceding (1:17) and launches the lengthy exposition of God’s wisdom with the cross as the focal point.

Structurally, 1:18 functions as a thesis statement, not only of 1:18–25 but extending to at least 3:23.

Human wisdom cannot understand the cross.

Peter, for example, did not understand the cross when he first heard Jesus speak of it.

In fact Peter took Jesus “aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord!

This shall never happen to You’ ” (Matt.

16:22).

Commentators frequently and correctly point out that the offense of the cross in Paul’s context is often lost to the modern Christian for whom the cross is now a symbol of the faith.

The Roman orator and philosopher Cicero called crucifixion a “most cruel and disgusting penalty.”101

From a Jewish perspective the one crucified was under God’s curse.

Yet, a “Christ crucified” was the object of Paul’s proclamation (1:23; 2:2), which brings into focus the sharp distinction between those who belong to this age and those who belong to the age to come.

The gospel is a message of foolishness “to those who are perishing” but the power of God “to us who are being saved,” which are eschatological descriptors that look forward to end-time judgment.

The present age is doomed and is already in the process of passing away (7:31).

For this reason, those who belong to this age and deem the cross as nonsense are on their way to ultimate ruin.

Paul uses present tense participles to describe both groups, thus commenting here only on their present state rather than their final destiny.

In other words, those who are perishing are on their way to ultimate ruin apart from repentance and faith.105

Similarly, those who are being saved are reminded that they are still on the way and have not yet arrived.

Paul’s choice of the present tense to describe salvation in 1:18 may be due to the parallel present tense description of those perishing, or he may have chosen the present to counter a Corinthian self-congratulatory mood “which is entirely at odds with the proclamation of the cross.”107

The words “wisdom” and “power,” along with their opposites (“folly/foolishness” and “weakness”), are used by Paul around twenty times in this short section (1:18–2:16).

This word group functions as Paul’s point of reference with the Corinthian community.

He is touching a nerve.