Daily Dose of the Word of God - 1 Corinthians 1: 18, 22-25

Erin Pacheco, Director of Worship

Transcript

Erin Pacheco  0:09 

Welcome to Elmhurst CRC’s Daily Dose of the Word of God – a great way for us to chew on a bit of scripture every day. Today is Friday, January 31, and Sunday is coming! I’m Erin Pacheco. Our scripture today comes from 1 Corinthians 1:18, 22-25.

Erin Pacheco  0:35 

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God… Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Erin Pacheco  1:16 

Paul is reminding the church in Corinth — this bustling city in the Roman empire — that the gospel isn’t necessarily going to earn them respect from their neighbors, at least not right away. The Jews wanted powerful signs of God’s presence, and the Greeks valued power and eloquence. The message of a crucified Messiah made sense to nobody. They laughed it off. It’s foolishness to anyone who hasn’t yet come to see the beauty and the mystery of the wisdom of God.  Basically, Paul says, God’s wisdom is counter-cultural. It’s laughable and weird. But that doesn’t make it any less true, because the wisdom of God is greater than the wisdom of the world. 

Erin Pacheco  2:12 

I’m reminded of Pastor Gregg’s challenge in yesterday’s Daily Dose to embrace these weird habits of solitude and Sabbath and simplicity and slowness. All of that completely goes against the grain of the culture around us. We are busy people, hurried people, anxious people. A people of sound bites and quick eats and, often, short fuses. What does it look like to embody God’s wisdom in the western suburbs? What if following the way of the cross means choosing a lifestyle that just seems weird to the people around us? As we prepare for worship and communion this Sunday, I invite you to reflect on the upside-down wisdom of God. The power that Christ shows in the cross. The love that Christ shows through sacrifice. The peace that he gives through suffering. Jesus invites us today to resist the ways of the world – the ways of self-promotion and pride and restlessness and worry — and join him in the way of wisdom, where weakness wins, where surrender leads to resurrection, and where death is not the end.

Erin Pacheco  3:48  

Let’s pray. God, you say if anyone asks for wisdom, you will give it. Please give me more of your wisdom today, as I seek to follow Jesus. Amen.