Gospel Wisdom

Date: 11 May 2025, 9.30 am

Speaker: Ps Daniel Tan Sermon Text: 1 Corinthians 2:1-16

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TRANSCRIPT

Introduction

A Blessed Sunday to all. And a blessed mother’s day to all our ladies.

Before you is a picture of ancient Chinese wine jars. Wine (made from grain) was a staple in China for thousands of years.

According to the Internet, since the Shang dynasty (1750 – 1100 B.C), archaeologist have discovered that both the rich and the poor have had access to wine.

In modern times, with exposure to the West, grapes were introduced to China and it seems now China is the world’s largest consumer of red wine.

Are you familiar with the phase ‘China Wine’? Not as a name of a product, but as the name of a music video?

China Wine as a music video became infamous in our region in 2007 when it was part of the white collar crime investigation into a mega church financing.

The music video China Wine was part of that church’s Crossover Project that was to further what they termed as the Cultural Mandate.

To that mega church, the Cultural Mandate was an extension of their seeker-sensitive approach, with the emphasis of building a “church without walls”.

The primary goal of the Crossover Project was to reach out to the unchurched in society and get them into church.

One way to do this is to use secular entertainment to draw them in.

The genesis of this China Wine video was when a few years prior in Taiwan, the pastor was preaching and he observed that the people were not interested in his sermons, but in the music and the singing led by his team.

It was said that he realized then, the potential power of secular entertainment to reach the unsaved, especially the youths.

So the Crossover Project was birth to organize and conduct pop concerts in public places such as stadiums, concert halls etc.

The programme of the concert would be interspersed with evangelistic sharing and personal testimonies.

If you get a chance to watch the video, you will see scantily-clad Asian girls and black/Latinas face off to a funky beat, and there's a bit of a hip hop rap and vigorous twerking as well.

Not sure of its significance, but the wife of this mega church pastor is dressed like a Geisha in the video.

That cause disillusion amongst not a few of this church’s members, for they could not comprehend how this kind of music was intended to evangelize the world with the Christian Gospel.

There is a saying applicable to this situation - what and how you reach them with, you will reach them to.

I submit, that mega church has lost the true understanding of the cultural mandate.

As Christians, yes we are to engage society, we are not to withdraw from society.

The Great Commission of Mt 28 tells us so. We are to go make disciples of Christ Jesus.

Mt 28:18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

But in contrast to China Wine, we are to be salt and light. We are as Jesus said to be in the world but not of the world.

Mt 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. 14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

The primary role of salt in Mt 5, is for the preservation of what is good. Good as according to God’s Word.

And the metaphor of light is to shine so that the darkness of sin is exposed.

In today’s passage, Paul is instructing the Corinthians Christians, on Gospel Wisdom, how it should be rightly proclaimed and how it can be properly understood.

How to be in the world and not of the world.

And as we journey through 1 Cor 2, we will see that Paul will contrast how the world does it and how God deems it should be done.

Recap on Corinth

It has been just under a month since we started on our first sermon on 1 Cor. I thought before we dive into today’s passage, let’s do a short recap.

We know that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians during his third missionary journey, near the end of his three-year ministry in Ephesus (Acts 19:21–22).

Corinth was a wealthy Roman port city steeped in pagan idolatry and philosophy.

In Corinth, many cultures and religions mingled. The worship of these gods was fully integrated into governmental affairs, civic festivals, trade associations, and social clubs, and everyday life in general.

Relevant to today’s text, Corinth was also a destination for traveling professional orators who charged a fee for attendance at their entertaining rhetorical displays and advised people on how to advance socially.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians because he had received a report that the church was plagued with serious problems of division, sexual immorality, and social snobbery

They were also grappling with theological confusion about marriage, divorce, participation in pagan religions, order within corporate worship, and the bodily resurrection of Christians.

In short, Corinth would not look out of place in any metropolis in the 21st Century.

In 1 Cor 1, after highlighting his knowledge of divisions in the church, Paul ends  contrasting the wisdom of God with that of the world.

1 Cor 1:22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

And so in 1 Cor 2, he further elaborates on God’s Wisdom. God’s Wisdom that is the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus.

How it should be proclaimed – Jesus Christ and him crucified (v1-5)

Let’s now dive into the text and I would like to use the following headings as we journey through the first 5 verses.

Let us look at how the Gospel Wisdom should be proclaimed through Paul’s method, his message, Paul himself and what makes his communication effective.

As we view these verses, we will note too that Paul tends to state the negative first – he did not do this, then contrast it with what he actually did.

It’s to give the idea, that this is the way of the world, and then contrasting it with, but this is the way of God.

1 Cor 2:1 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Let’s begin with looking at Paul’s method. V1 tells us that it was without worldly flair. It was not with lofty speech or wisdom.

The public speakers of the day, spoke with high rhetoric with a pretence at superiority and was accompanied with a flamboyant style.

Remember such orators charged their audience for receiving their entertainment.

I supposed they were the equivalent of 21st Century talk-show hosts or stand up comedians.

The style to impress and to entertain was highly prized by the Corinthian society. But Paul refused to follow worldly methods of good communication and definitely refused to promote himself.

In v4, Paul said his speech was not in plausible words of wisdom. Not that his communication was unintelligent, but that he did not think it necessary to follow the art of persuasion by means of pandering to the ears of his audience.

Paul was an ambassador, not a sales person.  

What was Paul’s message?

It was Jesus Christ and him crucified. As Paul said in 1 Cor 1, it will be a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles. Yet he stuck unashamedly to this message.

This is wonderfully captured in the well-loved hymn, The Old Rugged Cross.

On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,

the emblem of suffering and shame;

and I love that old cross where the dearest and best

for a world of lost sinners was slain.

In stanza 1, it reminds us that the cross is the emblem of suffering and shame. That is a stumbling block to the Jews. But to the believer, it conveys the love of our Lord and Saviour.

O that old rugged cross, so despised by the world,

has a wondrous attraction for me;

for the dear Lamb of God left his glory above

to bear it to dark Calvary.

In stanza 2, it reminds us that the cross is so despised by the world, why, because it is folly to the Gentiles. There is no triumph here.

Yet for believers, it has a wondrous attraction for us, for it displays the costly sacrifice of Jesus.

If rhetorical flair was important to the Corinthians, then it is best accompanied with a fine stature.

But Paul the man came to them instead in weakness, in fear and much trembling. By all accounts, Paul was a smallish built man.

And his arrival in Corinthians in Acts 18, would have make him appear even less impressive.

Why because in Acts 14, in Lystra he was nearly stoned to death. In Acts 16, in Philippi, Paul received many blows from the rod and then he was thrown into the inner prison and had his feet fasten in the stocks.

All this would have left permanent visible scars on Paul.

In the last city before coming to Corinth, he was in Athen. Those that did not accept his preaching mocked and reviled Paul.

Literally and emotionally, Paul was preaching in weakness, in fear and in much trembling.

Not only was he audibly unimpressive, by sight too, Paul was unimpressive.   

And this is how it should be, Paul says.

Because then it will determine the means of effectiveness. It thus, demonstrates the power of the Spirit.

Our faith in the Gospel is not due to the wisdom of man but given through the wisdom of God.

Yes, Paul opened up the text, explained the meaning of the Bible, applied the good news about Jesus crucified to heads and hearts.

Yet, it is only when God the Holy Spirit took up Paul’s preaching ministry and wielded it with power, that conviction arrived into the Corinthian’s hearts.

The Holy Spirit is powerful to make effective what came from a weak and unimpressive Paul.

Saving faith is proof of the power of the Gospel presented plainly.

It is said that Charles Spurgeon the famous Baptist preacher was converted by the most unimpressive of preachers.

A young Spurgeon was going to church in a winter storm and due to the weather was forced to attend a nearby small and primitive Methodist chapel.

The storm rendered low attendance and even the regular preacher was not there. Instead a very thin-looking man, a shoemaker or tailer went up to the pulpit to preach.

According to Spurgeon, this man was rather stupid. He was obliged to stick to his text for the simple reason that he had little else to say.

The text was ‘look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth’.

To Spurgeon, the preacher did not even pronounce the words correctly.  

Yet, towards the end of his sermon, the preacher looked straight into Spurgeon’s eyes and said – young man, you look very miserable.

And you will always be miserable in life and miserable in death if you do not obey my text.

But if you obey it now, this moment, you will be saved.

The preacher then lifted his hands and said ‘Young man, look to Jesus Christ, Look! You have nothing to do but look and live!’

According to Spurgeon, ‘I saw at once the way of salvation. There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the Son and I could have risen that instant and sung with the most enthusiastic of them of the precious blood of Christ and the simple faith which looks alone to Him.’

Ephesians 2:4 tells us that we are dead in our sins and trespasses.

It was not the skill of the preacher but the demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit that open the heart of Spurgeon, dead in sin, to the glorious grace of the Gospel.

An implication for our consideration.

God chooses to use our weakness for His glory. For those of us who feel we are not as eloquent, and who find that our lives are not quite put together, but instead messy.

Fret not, God can still use us as His channel. It is the power of the Holy Spirit that awakens faith in a person.

Positively, it means there is now no pressure when we share the gospel. There is no need to be anxious about finding the precise words, or be the perfect person so as to seal the heavenly deal or to clinch the conversion sale.

Remember we are just ambassadors. May we unashamedly and plainly share the glorious Gospel.

 

How it can be understood – mind of Christ (v6-16)

Let’s now look at 1 Cor 2:6-16. From how the Gospel wisdom is communicated, Paul now elaborates on how Gospel Wisdom can be received and understood.

Paul continues to help us see that we cannot convince nor argue our loved ones into God’s Kingdom.

They can never accept God’s Wisdom unless God by His Spirit enables them to.

And Paul uses the contrast between the Natural person and the Spiritual person to show how they differ in response to God’s Wisdom.

The natural man is the unbeliever and the spiritual man is the believer. One cannot perceive God’s wisdom while the other can. The spiritual man is also referred to as the mature person.

I would like to propose 4 perspectives that Paul teases out for us in these verses. The perspective of time, revelation, communications and relevance.

1 Cor 2:6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”— 10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16  “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

Firstly the time perspective. V7 tells us that Gospel Wisdom has been decreed before the ages for our glory.

Eph 1:4 tells us that God’s wisdom is foreordained. That before the foundation of the world, God has chosen us to be holy and blameless.

Gospel Wisdom is from eternity past and this is contrasted with the wisdom of this age which is doomed to pass away.

The wisdom of this age is fleeting, but Gospel Wisdom will stand forever.

What that means for us is that Gospel Wisdom displays God’s sovereignty.

It shows that God is working out His sovereign providence. It means for those of us who acknowledge Gospel Wisdom, it will help us to trust God better.

I submit that in v9 to 11, we see the Revelation perspective. How can Gospel Wisdom be understood? It is only when God reveals it.

V10 says these things (Gospel Wisdom) God has revealed to us through the Spirit. It means God by His Spirit is the one who has awakened in us the spiritual insights to understand and to embrace Jesus the crucified messiah.

The Holy Spirit is in all believers, regardless of race, language and nationalities.

It means everyone is able to grasp Gospel Wisdom.

That wisdom (which is embodied in Christ) may have been hidden and secret in the past, but now it has been fully revealed to everyone by the indwelling Holy Spirit.

V9 says, God has prepared this revelation to all who love Him. It also means these are those whom God loves. For it is for those whom God loves that Jesus came to die for.

Church, when we all embrace Gospel Wisdom, know that God keeps no other secret from you.

Because that is what V11 tells us. The Spirit of God knows the depth of God and believers have been given the Spirit to understand God deeply.

Therefore, there are no 2 class of Christians.

There is no such thing as normal class and an ‘atas’ class of Christians, that have a special anointing of the Holy Spirit.

No, all of us have the same Holy Spirit that knows the depth of God Almighty.

The implication is that when we by faith accept Jesus as Saviour, we have access by the same Holy Spirit to know God deeply.

Today, church, remember this wonderful privilege that we have. We can know God intimately. Every resource, every path to a deeper relationship with God has been open up for us through the Holy Spirit.

Church, the key to a deeper relationship with God is prayerful dependence upon the Holy Spirit.  

Thirdly, may I submit, Paul tells us the communications perspective in v12 and 13.

V12 emphasizes the distinction between believers and that of the rest of society. Only believers have the Holy Spirit while the rest of the world has the spirit of the world.

And we know from other parts of Scripture that Satan is the prince and the ruler of this world. Thus, those who have the spirit of the world cannot comprehend Gospel Wisdom.

In V13, the ‘we’ in the narrow sense I submit can refer to the Apostles.

And if so, they are speaking of how the Holy Spirit has inspired them as they record the Gospels and the letters that they are writing to the church.

2 Peter 3:15 Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

And so Apostle Peter says in his 2nd letter, that Paul’s teachings come out of divine wisdom that has been given to him and thus, Paul’s teachings are on par as Scripture.

This implies that the bible we have is the Word of God and that means God speaks to us through Scripture.

This is captured in the song Ancient Words:

Holy words of our faith, Handed down to this age

Came to us through sacrifice, Oh, heed the faithful words of Christ

Today, may we have a fresh appreciation when we hear the Scripture Reader say at the end – this is the Word of the Lord. May our hearts, truly say, Amen, indeed thanks be to God.

As we gratefully receive God’s Word in the vernacular. May we thus pray for translation work that is still happening around the world. That every people group will be able to hear God communicate in their own language.  

Finally, the relevance perspective on how Gospel Wisdom is to be understood.

It comes as no surprise that the natural man does not accept the things of God. He rejects them because he cannot understand it.

It’s not because the natural man does not have the comprehensive capacity, he is simply unable to.

Only the believer indwelled by the Holy Spirit is able to understand and to accept spiritual truths.

And so v15 explains that because the Spiritual man has the mind of Christ, thus they see Christ at the centre of all things.

This means they will avoid making inappropriate or false judgements based on the values of the age. Especially, they will not judge other Christians according to which leader they follow or what ‘special’ wisdom they seem to have.  

Against the existing judgmental attitude of the Corinthian Christians, Paul is telling them, because all are spiritual, all are equal, thus they cannot be judged by others.

Gospel Wisdom can only be understood when we have the mind of Christ. And that is given by the Spirit of God.

And when we have the mind of Christ, we would seek to follow Jesus the crucified messiah.

That means a life of humility, a life of grace, a life of utter dependence on God and a life lived in the world but not of it.

Conclusion

Let’s conclude the sermon by asking - What could a life lived in sensitivity to the Holy Spirit look like?

May I illustrate it through the life of William Wilberforce. He was an Englishman who was the great advocate for the abolition of slavery.

William Wilberforce had a good friend who was a nominal Christian who went by the same first name, William Pitt the Younger.

William Pitt happened to also be the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

One day, Wilberforce was able to bring Pitt to hear a well-known evangelical preacher Richard Cecil.

Richard’s sermon that day, expounded on the glories of the kingdom of God and the relationship of the child of God to the Father.

After the sermon, Wilberforce left the church rejoicing in this glorious truth and he wondered in to himself, I pray that the Lord is speaking to Pitt’s heart.

To Wilberforce’s utter dismay, at the steps of the church, Pitt turned and said to Wilberforce, ‘I didn’t understand a word that man was saying. What was it all about?’.

Same sermon from the same Scripture by the same preacher, yet 2 contrasting responses.

The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God for they are folly to him.  

Today, if you identify with William Pitt, I pray that the grace of God will touch you heart and reveal Jesus to you.

There is no appealing marketing nor logical argument that can persuade you to accept Jesus as Saviour.  Only the revelation from the Holy Spirt can.

I pray, you be willing to just say, Lord Jesus, help my unbelief.

For those of us who identify with Wilberforce, since Jesus is our Saviour, may the Lordship of Jesus spur us towards His Cultural Mandate.

That we are to make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of our Triune God and teaching them to observe all that Jesus has commanded.

Amen.