Lot of boasting going on in vs. 11-17: “I’m in Paul’s group.” “Well I’m in Peter’s!” Etc. Paul now says in effect, “So you think the gospel is a form of sophia ?” How foolish can you get-look at its message-it’s based on the story of a crucified Messiah.”

• Apologist Justin Martyr (2^{nd ACE.) wrote to the Roman emperor Antonius Pius: “Non-christians say that our madness consists in the fact that we put a crucified man in second place after the unchangeable and eternal God, creator of the world.”}

• The sight of crucifixion was a punishment that satisfied the lust for revenge and was thought to be a deterrent for crime. It was an obscenity that conjured up the image of a naked body impaled to a stake, a body wounded, bloody, swollen, deformed, covered with insects, and left for the vultures. The cross was not a nice theological expression.

• Paul’s preaching of the cross would have been in his own day, equivalent to some mad religious sect finding the salvation of the world in poisonous gas or the electric chair.

 

What attitudes do people form when they think about the cross or crucifix- superstition? Religious symbol? Jewelry? A scene from a Count Dracula?

• In our age, most people think of scientists as the paradigms of reality who rely on experimental methods and rational inferences. They are the ones we go to when we want to learn about the way things are. And what makes a good scientist? A well-educated mind that will follow the truth wherever it leads.

• But what about Christian faith? Knowledge of God doesn’t necessarily come to the well trained. Such knowledge is experiential and comes to those who can listen to Paul’s words while aware of their own lack of wisdom.

• “The wisest are those who know that they do not know” (Socrates).

• The first step to grasping the truth is recognize our own inabilities to know God. God finds those who know themselves to be lost or “poor in spirit.”

 

Raise the image of a crucifix. Show several types of crosses; describe how they’re used in your place of worship. You might want to research crosses.

• Ask how our culture thinks about crosses. Name several ways that you have observed that people think about the cross.

• Contrast-describe the ancient view of the cross (cf. “scripture” section).

• Move to the issue of faith in our inability to know or understand the cross apart from God’s help.