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Rev Graham Harrison           Sunday May 31st a.m. 1998

1 Corinthians 2:1-5

And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God [1 Corinthians 2:1-5].

But in particular he has been dealing with what amounted to a criticism of him and his ministry. It was not something personal as far as he was concerned - at least that was not how he was regarding it. He looked upon it as an onslaught on the gospel. What had happened in Corinth after he had left, was that people had arisen, some of them very influential - some of them Greeks, some of them Jews - who in effect were saying something like this: 'We have to move on from the position in which Paul has left us. Maybe his preaching was interesting, perhaps it was useful in getting some of us converted; but it really is not that which is going to make any impact on this pagan city of Corinth.' So the Greeks in the church were dismissing it as foolishness and the Jews were dismissing it as weakness.

The bulk of chapter one has consisted of an extended argument from the Apostle in which he has been saying, 'You are making a very great mistake. What you think is weakness is the very strength of God. What you are dismissing as foolishness is the wisdom of God Almighty'. As he has moved to the climax of that first chapter he has been arguing that position very persuasively.

But when he comes into the second chapter it is as if he opens his heart to them and gives them a little glimpse of the predicament that he was in when first he made his way to Corinth. It is one of those passages, and they seem to abound in the New Testament and in the writings of Paul, in which he does draw the veil aside from himself. He lets them see something of his experience - the difficulties, the troubles that he had known. Perhaps they had never thought of him like this: 'I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling'. 'But that,' he says, 'is how I came to Corinth. I did not come as some sort of spiritual he-man, throwing my weight around! Indeed if you had been able to get me on my own and ask me to be quite honest with you and to tell you how I was feeling, I would have had to reply in words like this - I am weak, I am fearful, indeed it is actually making my body to tremble. That is how I came to Corinth!'

'But,' he says, 'despite all that, I came with a fixed purpose, with something that was absolutely determined in my mind. This is what it was: "I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." And because of that there were certain things that I deliberately turned away from. I could have employed them, but I did not. I did not come "with excellency of speech" or "with enticing words of man's wisdom". No, I did not come in that way, "not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." The reason was simply this: I wanted you to have a faith that would be a real faith - a faith that would stand, not "in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." So, "my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power".'

What Paul does in these verses is to explain to us the thoughts that had been going through his mind as he made his way from the previous place where he had been preaching, which was the great city of Athens, to this city of Corinth. Would it be too strong to say that that his mind was in turmoil? Certainly he must have been going over all that he had been preaching and the methods that he had been using. Now he was coming to Corinth should he make a change, or ought he to carry on as he had done before?

He had come to this position because of something very extraordinary that had happened to him in Athens. Perhaps you are surprised to hear me put it like that. Mnay of you will be familiar with the record in Acts 17 that describes to us how he preached there and the reception given to him in Athens. You do not see anything extraordinary about it. Yet there was - Paul was not persecuted in Athens. He did not end up in prison, nor he was not stoned. As far as we know, nobody laid a finger on him - and that was something almost unique in the experience of Paul.

Acts 9, which tells of Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus, goes on to describe what was going to become typical of his ministry: 'And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God. But all that heard him were amazed, and said; Is not this he that destroyed them which called on this name in Jerusalem, and came hither for that intent, that he might bring them bound unto the chief priests? But Saul increased the more in strength, and confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very Christ.' It continues: 'And after that many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel to kill him: But their laying await was known of Saul. And they watched the gates day and night to kill him. Then the disciples took him by night, and let him down by the wall in a basket' [Acts 9:20-25]. A very undignified exit, you might say, from Damascus and yet it got him out safely.

That was but the beginning of his troubles. Actually he was not surprised by it, because earlier in the chapter Ananias, who was spoken to by the Lord to go and visit Saul of Tarsus, drew back because he knew Saul's reputation. But as the Lord reassured him He told him one of the things that Paul was going to be made aware of: 'But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake' [Acts 9:15-16]. So Paul knew that now as a Christian he was going to be in for trouble. He was going to suffer many things for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. It began there at Damascus.

He goes down to Jerusalem and the same thing happens there. First of all the Christians are suspicious of him. They think that he is an agent trying to infiltrate them and betray them, but Barnabas reassures them about that. Then Paul begins preaching: 'And he spake boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus, and disputed against the Grecians: but they went about to slay him. Which when the brethren knew, they brought him down to Caesarea, and sent him forth to Tarsus' [Acts 9:29-30]. So again Paul had to be taken secretly from Jerusalem, in order that he might not be persecuted. That then becomes virtually the story of his life.

In Acts 13 you have the commencement of what we know as Paul's first missionary journey. He goes with Barnabas and John Mark first of all to the island of Cyprus. As they come to the end of their visit there they are opposed by Elymas, the sorcerer, who was some sort of magician. That, you might say, is a sign of the trouble that was to come. They cross the Mediterranean, and land in what today we would call Turkey. Barnabas and Saul make their way up into the interior of that country and they come to a place called Antioch in Pisidia. There they are persecuted and hounded out of the city. On they go to Iconium, but the people from the previous place chase after them and spread these rumours about them so that Paul and Barnabas are assaulted and have to flee. They go to Lystra and what happens there? Violent opposition arises and Paul is actually stoned and left for dead. He is not dead but he was obviously left unconscious and the people thought that they had finished him off! So, on and on it goes.

Then there was this second missionary journey that brought him eventually to the city of Corinth. In Acts 16 we are told that he goes to Philippi. What happens there? He is arrested and thrown into prison. His back is torn and bleeding from the lashing that he has received. Released from prison, the next day he has to leave the city and on he goes from Philippi to Thessalonica where he preaches with great blessing. But once more it is the same story; there is a sort of riot stirred up against him and Paul has to leave the city of Thessalonica. He goes to a place called Berea. The Jews there are willing to listen to him until some Jews from Thessalonica come. Once more Paul has to be taken away by night and brought down to the city of Athens.

There for virtually the first time in the ministry of the Apostle Paul, nobody troubles him! He is in this great city, one of the great cities of the ancient world, surrounded by all these temples to the Greek gods and goddesses. It stirs the very spirit of Paul as he sees the idolatry and the futility of it all. He begins to speak about it there in the market place and people are listening to him. You can imagine that Paul does not pull any punches. But instead of it resulting in his persecution, word of this comes to the very learned society of the Areopagus, the great philosophers of Athens. They say, 'We want you to come and speak to us and explain to us what you are preaching that is causing such a stir down there in the market place!'

So he does that. He comes and preaches to them - you have the account of his sermon in Acts 17. But nothing happens to him except that he suffers the indignity of being mocked at and laughed at! 'And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.' Paul was not chased out of town. In fact you read in the next verse: 'So Paul departed from among them' [Acts 17:32-33].

That, I believe, shook Paul. In one sense he must have been asking himself, 'Did I do something wrong in Athens? Is the message that I have been preaching somehow off-centre as far as these cultured, eloquent and highly intelligent Greeks are concerned? Now that I have come down to the very heartland of the country of Greece and will be moving in these high-powered circles, do I have to change what I have been saying? Why was it that they did not persecute me? Everywhere I have been I have either been stoned, or hounded from the town, or assaulted in some way or another. Why did they not do that at Athens? Has there been something deficient about my message?'

So here is this lonely figure of Paul walking down the road, forty or fifty miles or so from Athens to the city of Corinth, and he is really grappling with this problem. 'I know something of the reputation of Corinth. When I get there am I to do as I did in Athens? Have I got to change? Does my method need some adaptation? Ought I to preach from another angle, or introduce other features?' I would not have any hesitation in suggesting that there could have been a real sense in which Paul's mind might have been in virtual turmoil as he was trying to work out why it was that things had gone, as it were, so well in Athens - at least from the point of view of his not being persecuted.

As he thought, and no doubt prayed, over these things, he says, 'I came to this settled conviction and determination. I was not to change. It was not that my message was deficient. Perhaps he even began to realise something that possibly he had not understood before. There can be more than one form of persecution. Sometimes it can break out violently and physically. But at other times it may be a much more subtle, a much more cultured thing - very respectable, very sophisticated. Those philosophers there in Athens had just sneered condescendingly at that poor, solitary Christian preacher and suggested that his intellect was a little bit enfeebled. It can be very humiliating, but persecution can be like that.

That variety of form that persecution can take is still with us. Indeed you can go to different parts of the world today and if you were to stand up in one of the Muslim countries, say in Pakistan, and begin to preach boldly to the Muslim community about the Lord Jesus Christ, there is no doubt that you would be set upon. You would probably be lynched, as indeed not a few Pakistani Christians have been lynched in recent years. Violent persecution. But we can go, God willing as we shall do this coming week, and we can stand in the open air and speak about the Lord Jesus Christ. There may be some odd fanatic here or there who might try to interrupt us, but we are not expecting people to take up stones and hurl them against us. We are not anticipating that somebody is going to come out and grab hold of the speakers and start hitting them and try to kill them. We certainly do not anticipate that we will be thrown into prison as the result and have our backs whipped. But it may be that people will laugh; people may sneer at us; people may think that we are a bit soft in the head to do something like that.

Or if you do not do it in the open air, but seek to witness to somebody on a one-to-one basis, you know how humiliating it can be to be given a very clear impression that you are not 100% if you believe the sort of things that you are trying to get them to believe. It is persecution of a different sort, a much more genteel sort, but persecution nevertheless. Perhaps Paul for the first time in his experience began to know something of that sort of persecution as well as that with which He was more constantly familiar, the violence and the physical attacks. Athens, therefore, had left him in this state, if not of perplexity, yet at least one in which he was re-examining himself and re-examining his message.

So he says, 'When I came to Corinth, I did not proceed in a haphazard way. It was not that there was something basically simplistic and so terribly elementary about it that I could not do anything other than preach in the way that I did. No', he says, 'my whole manner of approach to you and the message that I gave to you was something that was thought out; it was something that I determined to do. I had given consideration to the alternatives and I was "determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified".'

Now these verses, therefore, explain to us the way in which Paul proceeded and I think that they have something very, very important to say to us as we come almost to the end of the twentieth century. Let me explain it by putting it in terms of a question. What was Paul's aim? I suppose you could say that the overarching aim of his life as a Christian could be summarised in two ways. You can say that first and foremost it was that God be glorified. He was always aware of the fact that he was accountable to God. Therefore, what he had to do, what he said, how he did it, how he said it, was something for which one day he would answer to God. He was concerned that God be glorified. He did not want to indulge in any methods or techniques that would bring shame upon God; he wanted instead to do that which would glorify God. That was the first aim, the overarching aim.

But there was another aim that went along with it. Why was he going to Corinth? Why had he been to Athens, to Berea, to Thessalonica, to Philippi and to all those other places that are recorded as having been visited by the Apostle Paul? Why? Well he was going seeking to bring people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. He wanted them to be converted. He wanted them to become Christians. I do not think that he would have put it like that - that is our way of putting it, as the very terminology would not have been familiar in those days. But that essentially was what he wanted them to do; he wanted them to come and to trust in Jesus Christ, so that through life they would know His presence, in death they would know His presence, and in eternity they would be with Him forever. These were his great aims, the glory of God and the salvation of sinners. And they must still be our aims today.

So there is a problem that arises. How am I going to accomplish that end? That is what Paul really answers in these verses. You see what he is doing, he is explaining to these Christians and saying, 'You are making a great mistake. You think that I came and I preached this basic gospel, but that you have to move on from it to something more profound. You think that I have got to vary the message so that I do not tread on Jewish toes so much. No', he says, 'I came deliberately, I came with a sense of purpose. I came not heedlessly and thoughtlessly, but I came having fully worked out in my mind not only what I was going to say, but how I was going to say it. "I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power".'

'What did I do?' he asks. 'I came and I preached to you!' It is a word that means 'announced'. 'I announced, I declared to you'. He came with this message that had been entrusted to him and it was a message that had to be declared and proclaimed to these people. What was the content of the message? It was that against which these people, both Jews and Greeks, were rebelling. It was Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Or if you want to put it in another way, what Paul came to do was to speak to them, to preach to them, to declare to them, the truth about who Jesus Christ is. So he would have announced Him as the Son of God and the Son of man. He would have gone through the events of His life, His sinlessness, the power of His miracles, the wisdom of the things that He said. But invariably he would have led them to the great climax of the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ - when He was taken and nailed to the cross of Calvary and crucified.

And he would have dwelt upon that not simply as a terrible physical thing that happened to Jesus - it was all of that - but he would have asked the deeper questions. What was it that was happening to Him when He died in that way? Why did His Father allow that to happen to Him? Indeed he might have explained it to them in some of the language that he uses in various of his other epistles. For example, he might have turned back in his mind to the truth that he was going later write to the Christians in Rome, and he would have put it like this: 'Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood' [Romans 3:25]. Why did Christ die? He died in order to appease the wrath or the anger of God that otherwise would fall upon us sinners - and to do that He had to take our sins to Himself, so that they were reckoned as belonging to Him, and the wrath of God fell upon Him.

'Now', he says, 'You Corinthians, you are suggesting that we move on from that? You are suggesting that I take the emphasis off Jesus Christ and Him crucified? There is no way that I can do that! This is the gospel. This is why Christ came, this is the most marvellous thing that has ever happened - that Christ died in the place of sinners like you and me.' So, he says that he has 'determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.' Of course he would have gone on and explained the resurrection and the implications that come from the ministry and the life of the Lord Jesus Christ - but you could never get Paul away from this theme: 'Jesus Christ, and him crucified'.

'But then', says Paul, 'It was not simply that I came in order to proclaim that message to you. I did that. But I had to consider how it was that I was going to do it.' Paul, of course, would have been well aware of the various cultural factors that operated in Greek society at that time. He would have known that they were very used to people going around speaking in public about their various views, their philosophies, their religions, etc. He would have known that these Greeks were experts in listening to these orators. Just as some people get worked up today about sportsmen and are able almost to put them in a pecking order, so the Greeks would have done that with public speakers. They would have gone along and listened for a turn of phrase or a particular technique that was very effective. They would have watched how a man built up his argument and they how he drove it home, and the various oratorical and rhetorical devises that he used.

Paul in effect says to them, 'You know, I could have done that with the best of them! But I did not. I did not do it, not because I was incapable of doing it. I did not do it because the gospel did not need it. And had I done it, it would have taken away from the message that I preached to you. So I "came not with excellency of speech" - and it a sort of phrase that refers to all these devices and techniques that the Greek orators and rhetoricians would use. "And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." I did not, as it were, look around for these so-called aids and supports. They do not actually aid the gospel. They do not support the gospel, they detract from it. Instead I preach this message of "Jesus Christ, and him crucified".'

You see, this is something that is always with us. Right down through the centuries, and perhaps at no time more than at the present, you get these pressures on the church. Pressures within the church, as it was at Corinth, to abandon the proclamation, the preaching, the declaration of "Jesus Christ, and him crucified" - you bring these other things in. You make it more attractive to the world. You bring in the world's music, you bring in the world's drama, you bring in all things but the preaching of "Jesus Christ, and him crucified". No doubt in Corinth they were saying, 'Oh Paul, if only you would give us a bit of this - think what an entrance it would afford us into the life of society round about us. They would see that we are not people who are somehow unable to contact our fellow men. They would see that the gospel is not stuffy and stiff and starchy! They would see that there is something living and vibrant about it. They would see that you are able to use all these methods and techniques that these great Greek scholars use.'

But Paul says, 'No! Not only do we not need it, but those things would be a hindrance to the gospel'. So he says, 'I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.' So there were certain negative things that Paul avoided. He said, 'I am not going to do that! I turn away from those things. I am not going to employ those methods and those techniques!'

But that was not all. He said 'When I came avoiding those things, I came "in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power".' That was what had brought about the change in Corinth. Here was this man, he had nothing going for him, from a human point of view. No great personality, as we understand it, certainly no great physical appearance. No travelling circus that accompanied him, to give him some sort of support. No evangelistic organisation behind him. There he was, initially on his own, the only Christian in the city. And what is he doing? He is standing up, he is preaching of Jesus Christ and him crucified. You might think, well, he is just a crank! Nobody will listen to him!

But they did. They did because they recognised that there was something different about this man. 'He is not using all the tricks and the techniques of these orators that we are so used to. He seems to be avoiding that. But there is something fascinating about what he is saying. He is encountering us at depth. He is really penetrating into our souls, he is making us face up to the true God, to the living God. He is bringing before us issues of life and of death.' They listened and a wonderful thing happened - so many of them were converted.

You know from 1 Corinthians 6 that the sort of people who were converted were not just the decent, respectable, pillars of society, people who were perhaps seeking to improve themselves and be obedient to God. No, they were the people down in the moral dregs of society. People that social workers could not help - if social workers had been known in those days. People who were in the hopeless grip of terrible sins. They listened to this man preaching - and they listened to him telling them that Jesus Christ moved amongst people just like them - and that He spoke to them, not despising them, but spoke to them with compassion. And as he proclaimed the truth to them, he told them of a God who was able to do the impossible, as far as they were concerned.

They had never heard anything like that before. Society had written them off. Society had dismissed to the dustbin, and was waiting for the time when they would be dead and buried. But oh, here was a man that valued their souls - and he spoke of a Saviour who had died even for people like them. They believed and they were saved! Their lives were changed. Prostitutes dropped their trade. People who had been extortioners and twisters, suddenly became honest and generous people. Liars, you discovered you could now trust them. People whose lives had been a moral mess - adulterers, fornicators, homosexuals - they turned over a new leaf, and they stayed that way. What was it that had done it? 'Jesus Christ, and him crucified.'

'So,' says Paul, 'It was not something haphazard that I did when I came to you. It was not that I missed out on proceeding in the way in which I could have proceeded, and in which you think that I ought to have proceeded. No, it was deliberate. It was a determination on my part.' Why? 'Well, he said, 'I wanted you to have a faith that stands! "That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God". I knew that it was only the power of God that could change you, and then could keep you. The power of God's Holy Spirit as He attended that word that was proclaimed, and as He took that word home to your hearts - and He gave you a faith that stands.'

Now that is the only sort of faith that is worth having. Oh, perhaps these people did not realise it at the time, but in company with many of the other Christians in that first century, before long they were going to know the fires of persecution breaking upon them. Trouble and affliction - and they needed a faith that would stand. Remember the parable of the sower, as we call it, which the Lord Jesus Christ told. Four sorts of ground - but only one of them fruitful. There was the stony ground and the thorny ground. Do you remember our Lord's explanation of those? 'And these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground; who, when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness; And have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word's sake, immediately they are offended' [Mark 4:16-18]. Paul did not want that sort of believer, he wanted believers that would stand.

Our Lord explains the thorny ground: 'These are they which are sown among thorns; such as hear the word, And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful' [Mark 4:16-20]. Paul did not want that sort of believer because they are false believers just like the others. He wanted those who would have a faith that would stand when the persecution came. When perhaps these more subtle temptations of riches and affluence and ease in society, when they beset them, he wanted his converts to have a faith that would stand.

He wanted them to have a faith that, when they came to that last test of all, the test of dying, would see them through it. A faith that would stand. There is only one sort of faith that will provide you with that - it is faith in 'Jesus Christ, and him crucified'. When as the result of God the Holy Spirit taking that message and applying it to your heart, you believe in Him - you have a faith that will stand, stand secure. That is the only faith worth having - because it is the only faith that is worthy of the name. All other sorts disappear but this one endures. So Paul says, 'That is why I came, that is why I preached as I did. I wanted you to have a faith that would stand.'

We have been singing about it in some of our hymns:

Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed!
I, I am thy God, and will still give thee aid:
I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.

His oath, His cov'nant, and His blood,
Support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

And that is why Paul said: 'I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God'.

Amen
 

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