1 Corinthians 1:23,24 - We preach Christ crucified

1:23

Paul’s reaction to this situation was not to give in to it. Instead he preached Christ crucified. This was a stumbling block to the Jews. How could God allow His Messiah to be crucified on a cross, and by the hated Romans? Even worse, how could God Himself be crucified? For that is what the gospel says. To the Greeks the gospel is nonsense. How could a man dying on a cross be the saviour of the world? How could they possibly think that He is the Lord of all? For that is what the gospel says.

Note that Paul did not water down or amend the gospel in anyway. We need to be careful in apologetics. There is a very legitimate use of apologetics in demonstrating the reasonableness of our faith, and in highlighting the deficiencies in the world’s solutions. However, philosophy is not itself the gospel.”Proving” the existence of God is not in itself the gospel. For the gospel confronts our sinfulness, it cuts to the heart of the problem in our lives. So apologetics is good if given its rightful place, but we must never make an idol out of it.

1:24

So we have had all the reasons why the gospel is rejected by many people, so why bother? Because to those who are called by God it is the power of God. Through the hearing and believing the gospel people get saved.  And this applies to both Jews and Greeks, ie the very same people groups who object to the gospel. The gospel saves all people. Now this is not universalism, not everyone is saved, indeed many are not, but within any people group there will be those who are saved. So when we encounter opposition or resistance from groups we must never write off that group. The resistance and opposition is real, but there will be people within that group who are called by God, and He calls to them through the gospel. That group may be defined ethnically, it may be defined socially, it may be defined intellectually. It does not matter, within that group will be some who are called by God. Some atheists come to faith, some LGBT activists will come to faith, some secularists, some Muslims, some Hindus etc will come to faith.

And the gospel is not just the power of God, it is the wisdom of God. People can seem to be trapped by their situations, by their personalities, by their circumstances or by their past, with no way out. But then the gospel comes and suddenly they can see the wisdom of God, they can see how the cross sets them free from whatever it is that has entrapped them.