Journal: Faith and Mission
Volume: FM 05:2 (Spring 1988)
Article: The Foolishness Of What We Preach
Author: Fred A. Grissom

FM 5:2 (Spring 1988) p. 71

The Foolishness Of What We Preach

Fred A. Grissom

Associate Professor of Church History,
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

[1 Corinthians 1:18–25]

In the King James translation, part of verse 21 reads, “It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching.” When I was a child, I thought that meant that preaching, maybe the preacher, was foolish. And, considering my childish estimate of much of the preaching I heard, that made sense to me. Through the years and once very recently, in fact, I have heard this passage, especially verse 20, used as evidence that Christianity has nothing to do with the intellect, that a probing mind searching for answers to unanswered questions is antithetical to Christianity. Believe it or not, I almost accepted that once upon a time.

This passage is neither an indictment of preachers nor a diatribe against the use of the mind. Paul’s own career, both his creative preaching and learned, often closely reasoned, writing, is ample proof of that fact. Instead, the passage issues a profound condemnation of the human tendency to want everything brought down to our own level of understanding and sensibility. We have to have things explained to us in ways that are pleasing to us, in ways that fit our presuppositions. If something does not fit, we declare it to be nonsense or foolishness. Then we try to twist it so that it becomes less foolish; if it refuses to twist or be twisted, we usually just discard it and look for something else.

The Foolishness of the Gospel

In this passage, it is the Christian message that is described as “folly,” as foolishness. Using either of the sets of presuppositions and expectations with which Paul was familiar, the Christian gospel was absurd. The very idea that “Jesus is Lord”—that the Lord of the universe was made flesh, and died on the cross, was buried but then rose from the dead and is now a real living presence—was a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.

The Jews were looking for a Messiah, one anointed of God, a mighty king who would lead his people out of the depths into which they had fallen. They were not looking for a weakling who sounded good but was short on action, who was a friend of publicans and sinners, who spent much of his time discussing important matters with shameful Samaritan women, fishermen, and who knows what other kind of rift-raft. Even to suggest that the Messiah would suffer the ultimate humiliation of dying on a cross was scandalous to any self-respecting Jew. To make matters worse, the Christians were preaching the foolishness that ...