Reflections with Andy - 1 Corinthians 2: 1-5 – The Simple Gospel

Paul reminds us today what matters. The simple gospel of Jesus Christ

In our reflection on 1 Corinthians 2:1–5, Paul’s declaration — I resolved to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified — becomes a call to keep the main thing the main thing. Drawing on C.S. Lewis’s concept of mere Christianity and the historic framework of the Apostles’ Creed, the reflection distinguishes between the foundation of the faith — Jesus Christ, his life, death, resurrection, and return — and the secondary issues that denominations and theological traditions legitimately differ on. Those secondary things matter, but they are not the foundation, and it’s dangerously easy in our current moment to spend most of our energy arguing about them while neglecting the simple gospel the world is actually hungry for. Paul’s deliberate weakness is equally instructive: he came not with rhetorical power but in fear and trembling, so that faith would rest on God’s power rather than human persuasiveness. Your preacher didn’t save you. No theological tradition saved you. Only Jesus. And it’s only Jesus the world needs to hear about today.

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Good morning! Great to be with you on this Thursday. It’s been a good week — got out to make some visits yesterday, spent some time at the nursing home, and I sure do love getting to be with my people. Looking forward to more of the same today — visits, a lunch meeting, just seeing what good things God does here at Starkville First. I hope wherever you find yourself today, you find God’s goodness in your midst too.

Today we’re moving into First Corinthians — a new series starting with chapter 2, verses 1 through 5:

“When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.”

I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. I love that line. It’s a short phrase but it carries a lot of weight, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.

Paul didn’t come to Corinth with some great theological treatise. He didn’t arrive saying I resolved to share with you this particular theological framework or I came to make the case for my specific interpretive tradition. He came with one thing: Christ crucified. The simple gospel.

I’m a big fan of what C.S. Lewis called mere Christianity — the simple, historic orthodoxy of the church. Not a specific theological perspective, not a denominational tradition, but the bedrock of the faith itself. And that bedrock is probably best captured in the Apostles’ Creed: Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, dead and buried, raised on the third day, ascended to the right hand of the Father, coming again to judge the living and the dead. That’s the foundation. That’s what Paul is talking about.

Now — I want to be clear about something, because I think this gets muddled. I’m a United Methodist. I’m a Wesleyan. That shapes how I read and interpret Scripture, and I think that’s appropriate. We all have a theological lens, and we should. I’m not saying your denominational convictions don’t matter — they do, and I’d encourage you to test them, know them, and stand on them. But there’s a difference between those convictions and the foundation itself.

Your interpretation of baptism is a secondary issue. Your view on predestination is a secondary issue. Your understanding of how the sacraments work is a secondary issue. You can be a faithful Christian and land in different places on all of those things. What is not secondary is Jesus Christ — who he is, what he did, and why it matters. That’s the foundation. Everything else is built on top of it.

And here’s why this matters practically: it is very easy — especially right now, in this cultural moment — to spend the bulk of our energy arguing about secondary issues. Theological debates can be lively and interesting and even fun, in a certain kind of way. But they can also become a substitute for the one thing we’re actually called to proclaim. I love to tell the story, for those who know it best seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest. That old hymn gets it exactly right. The story the world needs is not the story of your denomination’s position on a secondary doctrinal matter. It’s the old, old story of Jesus and his love.

Paul also says something worth sitting with here: he didn’t come in strength and confidence and rhetorical power. He came in weakness and fear and trembling. And the reason matters — so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom but on the power of God. Paul wasn’t trying to make converts to Paul. He was trying to make disciples of Jesus. And he understood that if people came to faith because of his persuasiveness or his personality or his theological sophistication, he’d have built something fragile. Faith built on a person will crumble when that person disappoints you. Faith built on the power of God holds.

That’s a word for all of us who listen to preachers and teachers — myself very much included. Your preacher didn’t save you. Tim Keller didn’t save you. John Wesley didn’t save you. Good preachers, all of them — better than me, certainly — but none of them are the foundation. Jesus is the foundation. Base your faith on him, not on any of us, because we are going to get it wrong. We’re only human.

It’s only Jesus, friends. Christ crucified, resurrected, returning. That’s the simple gospel. That’s what the world needs to hear right now. Let’s proclaim it — with our words, with our service, with our lives — so that all the world may come to know Jesus Christ as Lord.

Tomorrow we’ll pick up with the end of chapter 2. Have a great day!