20th March 2026

In the second half of chapter one of Paul’s first Corinthian letter, his focus is on the power and wisdom of God, made manifest in the profound and simple message of the gospel. How was it, that in a prosperous, cosmopolitan city like Corinth, so steeped in idolatry and seemingly rampant immorality, that a large and growing community of believers were gathered?

When the apostle Paul first began to preach the gospel in the city where Aphrodite, the so-called ‘goddess of love’ was worshipped, his message seemed to fall on the impassive, barren ground of indifference. Responses came only in the form of contempt and scornful ridicule, so much so that the apostle seriously considered throwing in the evangelical towel. However, God spoke to him in a vision, encouraging him to just keep preaching the message, because, despite how things might appear, “I have many people in this city” (Acts 18:10). One of the great mysteries of the gospel is that the message has a power all of its own. It doesn’t require great oratory, rhetorical skill, or cultured, scholarly language; rather, as the old hymn fittingly says: If you cannot preach like Peter, if you cannot pray like Paul, you can tell the love of Jesus and say, “he died for all’’ ¹

When Paul preached the gospel, he chose not to dress the message up in fancy words or erudite language, because to do so would undermine the wisdom of the Cross and strip the gospel message of all power (1 Corinthians 1:17). The fact is that men and women are not brought to faith in Jesus by clever debates, philosophical reasoning, or astute arguments. This may well be how many of this world’s temporal ideologies and theories are advanced, but God, in his wisdom, is pleased to work differently in that what appears as foolishness to the unconverted is, in reality, the very power and wisdom of God (vv.21-24). God is not known through philosophy, wisdom, or intellectual activity, but by the ‘foolishness’ of preaching. It is the plain and simple message of the gospel that brings Jews and Gentiles alike to faith in ‘Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God’ (v.24).

However, the preaching of the gospel is not the sole means by which people are saved – but God’s purposes in Christ are sovereign and, as Jesus informed us, no one can come to him unless the Father calls them (John 6:44) and graces them with his Spirit, for it is ‘to those whom God has called’ that the grace of God comes, as the Spirit opens minds and hearts to understand and to respond in faith to the message concerning what God has accomplished in Christ (1 Corinthians 1:24). Therefore, there is nothing in the gospel itself that causes one person to believe and another to reject the message of salvation which it contains: ‘But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.’ (vv.27-29).

 ¹ ’There is a balm in Gilead’, traditional African American spiritual

Local congregation:
Grace Communion Peterborough
Farcet Village Hall
Main Street
Farcet
Peterborough
PE7 3AN

Meeting time:
Sunday 11.00 am

Local congregational contact:
Richard Dempsey
Email:  richard.dempsey@btinternet.com
Local church website: GRACE COMMUNION CHURCH PETERBOROUGH – Landing Page

Word of Life contact:
wordoflife@gracecom.church