For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also the Greek. (Romans 1:16)
The situation was surreal, almost like a scene from the notorious film, Inherit the Wind, had made its way onto the university campus. You could cut the tension with a knife as you watched worked up college students take turns trying to yell down a street preacher and his wife. Every now and then you could hear the peals of laughter erupt from the gathering crowd of the curious. Laughter turned to scorn, scorn gave way to amusement and then amusement to utter disbelief. What nonsense was this? What audacity could drudge up such boldness in the face of fierce opposition? One could see off to the side a group of students encircled about on the grass with their heads bowed and a sign “God is Love (John 3:16)” displayed next to the praying group. What a sight, and sharp contrast from the passionate exchanges occurring just right next to their silent vigil.
I would be mistaken to merely paint a mob scene for it was far from it. Neither though was there cordial exchanges occurring, but what seemed like a yelling contest between the groups. You could tell the many students struggled to pose questions to the shouting preacher whose wife marched about the circle with a sign which read, “Repent or go to Hell”. Not the kind of message that brought hope. The words came fast and furious as the preacher, in rapid succession, proceeded to quip off Scripture verses and intermittent cries to repent or burn. After the telling exhaustion caused the preacher to slow, he would turn to his wife and she would step up the assault of the incoherent Scripture stringing. Any perceived opposition was met with a black leather bound Bible waved wildly in front of the questioner’s face with, “God said it, I believe it, and that ends it!” The other replying, “Amen!” No longer was “good news” good, but good news made bad through every abrasive means that ran counter to the character of the Gospel. Truth not tempered by love can be like truth never said at all.
That’s Just Absurd!!
What went wrong? How did the engagement turn from a call to conversation, and rather to a call to war? Where was the wisdom and gentleness that was intended to beautify the Gospel truth?
Paul’s quote cited at the beginning of this post is amazing for the first question that comes to mind: why would Paul be ashamed? Wasn’t the Gospel “good news”? It may be obvious to Christians who may have been raised within the church to see the Gospel in this way. This wasn’t the case with New Testament Greeks or Hebrews. The Greeks often saw the afterlife (Hades) as a travel to a netherworld where the soul was meant to exist in eternal limbo, monotonous and trivial. Others perceived that the when the body ceased to exist so too the soul. For those cherished few, favored of the gods, the person would be assumed into the constellations or take up residence among the divines upon Mount Olympus. If anything, the souls departure meant no return. The possibility of resurrecting was not miraculous, just impossible.
So Paul in his time would have to contend with the “wisdom” of the philosophers who saw no possibility of resurrection, much less a poor carpenter from Nazareth who died upon cross reserved only for the most heinous crimes. Only to add to the outrageousness of Paul’s claims would have been the claim that this man, Jesus, was capable of taking away the sins of the people. The rituals, feasts, and sacrifices of the Greeks meant nothing to the so called “gods”, only Christ was sufficient to draw men closer to the “Unknown God”. Whereas in our day such claims to Christianity are met with indifference or amusement , Paul would have faced a crowd that could not fathom how such claims could even be.
“…it is the power of God for salvation…”
This is the heart of the Christian witness. This the crux by which our efforts rest. Like the tower game of “Jenga”, to remove this statement from our from our hearts removes the Gospel. What do I mean by this?
A presidential speech writer takes weeks to prepare and refine the script that will ultimately be used by the President of the U.S. to address the nation in the yearly “State of the Union” address. It is often checked for accuracy. and then rechecked for it rhetorical flourishes that are meant to inspire. and checked one last time before being placed on the teleprompter. This careful crafting of a message is tedious, but often planned to the “t”. The effectiveness of the message is dependent upon the President to use his oratory skills to communicate the message. Success or failure rests on the writer to writer and the speaker to speak. However, Paul confesses:
And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
How Christians Destroy the Gospel
God is the power that brings about salvation, not one’s “words of wisdom”. This is both a comfort and a warning. The Christian can rest in the confidence that sharing the Gospel will bring about salvation, even if one cannot devise a heartbreaking, soul wrenching speech that calls to the individual. God will bless the small means that the Christian can muster.
For those who trust in their words to bring about the saving of souls, one has only to see that God makes Himself the sufficient means to draw them to Christ. “Then he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.” (Zechariah 4:6) It is not in the sharing of many words or few words that God will save, but namely in the proclamation of the Gospel.
Lastly, it has been the characteristic of many Christians to seek to share their testimony and not God’s Gospel (this can only be another symptom of shame) in speaking to the unbeliever. It can only admit that the Gospel is not enough to save. That a sales pitch must precede the “Good News” and only after it is determined whether the listener is sympathetic to such a message. Is not God mighty enough to save apart from our testimony? This is not to say that there is not a place and time to take up sharing one’s testimony, but it must not be the sole means by which one shares the Gospel. Christ isn’t the crafty salesmen, but the Prophet, Priest and King. The Gospel is not what is in us or even what God has “done in my life”, but what happened “out there” in time to a man, Jesus Christ, upon a cross before a broken sinful world.
This Gospel: that Christ the Son of God, came into the world to save sinners by dying on the cross and having taken upon himself the sins of all those who would believe stands as the message that pleases God the most when we are bold enough to proclaim it.
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. (1 Corinthians 1:21)
