God's Power

 

DEVOTION

THE 1^ST LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS

GOD’S POWER

1 Cor 2:1-5

2:1 When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.   2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.

NIV

Paul was not a simple or uneducated man. From his own testimony, he has said that he was a Hebrew of Hebrews, from the tribe a Benjamin, a Pharisee. He knew the Law and was in fact a persecutor of the early church until he met Jesus on that road. Then his life was turned upside down and inside out. However, here he tells these believers in Corinth that he did not come to them using all the great vocabulary he could have. He did not exhibit great wisdom. He merely gave a testimony about God. What is interesting, and Paul will get to this later in his letter, is that there were various religious ideologies in Corinth. Because of Corinth’s location with both two seas, the Aegean and the Ionian sea. It had become a very wealthy seaport city that had a large temple to the goddess Aphrodite. The Romans also brought in their gods, and so there was a mixture of different gods within the cities culture. Paul says he did not come to debate all the beliefs in these other gods, but to simply give a testimony about the one true God. We have to remember, he is writing to the church, to those who left all those other gods and came to believe in the one true God, the Father, and His Son Jesus Christ, as their Lord and Savior. Paul reminds them it was Jesus Christ crucified was his message. Here are the two life lessons we learn. First, that we accepted this same message, Jesus Christ crucified. This means we have been freed from the bondage of sin, but also that we have been freed from the penalty of sin, for Jesus took all our sin and paid the price. So we have this peace, this freedom from guilt, shame, and fear of the wrath of God, as he will not punish us, nor condemn us, because we are in Christ Jesus and thus He has declared us holy and blameless in his sight. The second lesson we learn is that we too only need to share a message of Jesus Christ crucified. We need not debate all the ideologies of this world, nor condemn them. Our only message needs to be our testimony of Jesus crucified, that he took our sin, that we have been set free and that others can also be set free, and live a full and rich life in the here and now as well as have life eternal. True, there are those who might say they are a Christian, but may not understand the truth of Jesus Christ Crucified. But again, it is not up to us to teach or preach but to simply give them our testimony about Jesus. If we rest on our own abilities to persuade others, we are sure to fail. However, if we rest in and on the power of the Spirit, then God will do the rest. The power of the Spirit will do all that is needed to convict men of their sin and need of repentance. We cannot do that, But the Spirit can and does. Then people will not just turn from their ways and believe because of our find words of wisdom, but because they experienced the power of the Spirit in their lives, just as we did. This is God calling men unto himself, rather than men calling men to God. The Spirit is at work, we simply need to give our testimony about Jesus. We have no power, for it is all God’s power.