Yesterday we looked at how the Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans were all offended by Paul’s message of the cross. So what did Paul do when faced with this opposition? When he preached to the Romans, he preached Christ crucified in weakness, but in the power of God. When he preached to the Jews, he preached Christ, who came not as a sign, but to die and give his life as a ransom for many in the power of God. When he preached to the Greeks, he did not preach Christ, the wisdom of man, but Christ, the simple Gospel, the simple Savior who died in order that we might be saved. And that was the power of God to the Greeks, as well as to the Jews, as well as to the Romans.
Theories will come and go. Today's theory about psychology, or sociology, or science is very quickly superseded by another theory. We know perfectly well how passing all of that is. Yet, there is the Gospel, which endures, which is based on the very nature of God (who is reality himself) and which changes not. The world says, "Oh, all that is foolishness."
Yesterday’s lesson mentioned Carl Sagan’s book and television series on evolution, Cosmos. Today I want to point out the great errors in Sagan’s approach to things. Let me suggest a few. The first is the error of supposing that all there is can be observed by the human eye. I cannot see anything spiritual, but I can see planets, and atoms, and the relationships between those things. So I assume that that is all there is. If all I can imagine is only what I can see - and that is what Sagan is talking about - that is utter foolishness because at the beginning, in a most unscientific way, it excludes the possibility of the existence of a God who stands over and beyond the creation.
There should be a connection between wisdom and results, and this is precisely the point at which the world's wisdom, which is foolishness to God, is found wanting. In recent generations, a great deal of hope was put on the field of psychology and psychiatry, at least ever since Sigmund Freud introduced his theories. Through our great schools of psychology and the training up and practice of psychologists and psychiatrists in their disciplines, we have given ourselves the idea that we have been able to gather data and understand how people function. Yet, it is an obvious fact - to anybody who looks around at our culture - that in spite of this supposed wisdom, we have even more psychological misfits today.
The believers at Corinth are commended by the apostle Paul in the first seventeen verses of chapter 1 for what they have and are in Christ. But in practical terms, they were rent with all kinds of divisions and personal loyalties. As we read on in the letter, their troubles unfold.
