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Text: 1 Corinthians 1:18–31
Liturgical Date: Epiphany 4A
Calendar Date: February 1, 2026
Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Jackson
Location: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County
316 W. Main St.
Forestville, WI 54213
920-856-6420
Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church serves Sturgeon Bay and other communities in Northeast Wisconsin.
Transcript
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
So I’m going to have to apologize to you all today. I know that you enjoy Pastor Chris’s 25- or 27-minute sermons, but today’s not going to be one of those days. I’m sorry. You’re just going to have to go back and listen to some sermon archives or something like that to get your fill. We’ve got those on our website and so on.
We’re going to be keeping it a little bit short today because my voice is rather weak. I was up singing in the choir last night and had some speaking parts as well with that. And then this morning I had to yell at my dog. And in addition, coming off a little bit of sickness, so my voice is a little weak.
Well, that’s a good illustration of the principle at play here that we’re going to be talking about. We heard today from St. Paul in 1 Corinthians:
“God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human might boast in the presence of God.”
And every time I hear that passage, my mind goes back about 25 years ago. I was a college student at Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana. And I typically went to one of the town churches there Sunday to Sunday. I was at the town church there, and a lay reader got up—someone who is not good at reading, as Mary is, rather someone who evidently had a great deal of eye problems. He was a gentleman as well that a lot of people probably would look down on. He was a person who had rather shabby and aged clothes, and really just was struggling with the reading.
Yeah, what a great illustration of the principle here, because here he is—a man barely able to read these words on the page to the congregation—and yet communicating timeless truths and communicating that one truth which is more powerful than any other truth in the world: This truth before God, we have nothing to boast of. Even those who are mighty and powerful and strong in this world—for God, we have nothing to boast of. But God has done something for us and something the world would consider weak and foolish, which is the death of His Son. And by this He accomplished what nothing else could do: hearts turn to Him in faith, by this receiving eternal life.
The Greeks Demand Wisdom
Paul talks about how the Greeks demanded wisdom and the Jews demanded signs. What exactly is he talking about there?
Greeks demand wisdom. Christianity ran counter to the prevailing philosophical views of the day in the Greco-Roman world. A few hundred years before the time of St. Paul, there was a philosopher by the name of Heraclitus. I’ve talked about him before. Heraclitus, as he was sitting by a creek in Greece, was looking at those waters flowing by. And this creek, this river, was never the same moment to moment. It was changing every single moment—ripple here, a glimmer there, a swell here, a trough there—always changing. Even the riverbed itself was changing. You could see how the pebbles and the sand were getting carried along in that stream. And he realized that the entire world, the entire physical world, is like this. He said, panta rhei—“all things flow.”
Yes, it’s most evident in something like a stream, but in the stream of time, everything flows, everything changes. Nothing stays the same. Well, this led to the question: How can you lay hold of the eternal, the timeless—that which doesn’t change, but rather always remains the same? Because only that can be real.
You know, this whole idea flipped on its head the prevailing philosophy of the day. (Our day, we’ll get to that in a second.) But in the Greek mind, this wasn’t really real—because how can you say this is real if it changes and if it comes to naught? What’s real is that which is eternal and timeless and unchangeable.
And by the time of St. Paul, the idea is that you get access to the eternal, the unchangeable, by means of the mind—through the mind, come to the knowledge of eternal principles which remain the same all the time. That’s what was going on in the Greek mind.
And here we can see how the cross of Christ, the message of the gospel, was foolishness to the Greeks. Because the message of the gospel is this: that the eternal, unchangeable God—the source of all wisdom—actually became a part of this changeable world; that He, by taking on human flesh, became a part of all this; and that we apprehend the eternal, the unchangeable, by faith in God. And that faith comes to the suffering Christ. And this whole idea—the idea that through literally a man’s blood flowing out of him (remember when I said that philosopher, panta rhei—this blood flowing out), that by means of that blood we would have access to the eternal—foolishness.
The Prevailing Philosophy of Our Day
lNow, the prevailing philosophy of our day, if you can call it that, is very much different. The prevailing philosophy today is that the only thing real is the touchable, the tangible, the things of this world. Once again, the world considers us Christians foolish. Why? Well, because we believe in things that cannot be seen: God in heaven, His eternal law, the righteousness that has been won for us by Christ and the cross. These are things which are apprehended by faith, not by sight. And so for different reasons, the world and its philosophy still considers us foolish.
The Jews Demand Signs
And the Jews—this, I think, is a word against modern-day religious people. The Jews demanded signs. St. Paul says, what kind of signs were they seeking? They were seeking the favor of God and the apprehension of God’s plans and purposes in what we might call great end-time signs—huge movements, not miracles per se. They weren’t miracle chasers. But the Jews, in order to believe that a man was a true prophet, wanted something like what Moses accomplished—you know, bringing the people of God out of their Egyptian slavery, something of that magnitude—or maybe something of what happened at a later date, when the Assyrians surrounded Jerusalem and this huge mighty world superpower force, which literally had toppled every other kingdom in front of them like dominoes, was stopped at Jerusalem and inexplicably just packs up and leaves. And the knowledge that this could only be by the power of God. That’s the sort of thing the Jews were looking for—the knowledge of God and your status with God by virtue of these huge signs.
And so maybe they were looking for something like the restoration of Israel back to independence or something of that nature, which obviously Christ hadn’t accomplished, hadn’t even set out to accomplish.
And so for the Jews as well, Christ was a stumbling block. You know, I believe Christ remains a stumbling block for many of those who are religious, including those who consider themselves Christians, because many Christians still look for signs all around them to understand God’s will, to understand who God is.
There are those who have, I believe, erred views of Revelation, by the way. But those who, on the basis of Revelation, will open up the newspaper and look for fulfillment of what they consider to be various prophecies in the book of Revelation—and usually their predictions on the basis of this all, actually all the time, they’re always wrong, by the way. Or maybe it’s not through that, or they want to see or experience or know God through something tangible like an emotional experience. A lot of people don’t believe God is there and doing His work unless there’s a big crowd and it’s whipped up to a certain kind of frenzy, and they say, “Look, God’s not present and God’s not doing His thing unless we can see some sign like that.”
And for them, once again, Christ crucified is a stumbling block, because Christ crucified—that message of the gospel—it’s a message which is offensive to many people, even those who consider themselves Christian. And if you preach the forgiveness of sins won for us by the blood of Christ Jesus, many people are turned off by this message.
We Preach Christ Crucified
But brothers and sisters in Christ, even while the message of the cross is a stumbling block to many, and even while the message of the cross is foolishness to many others, yet here at St. Peter’s we join with St. Paul in this commitment: that we preach Christ crucified. Because it is that message of Christ crucified which can do something that nothing else can do—turn hearts to trust in God and receive eternal life.
The philosophy of the age considers trust in God to be just simply a non-issue, and so you discard it altogether. Philosophical or scientific pursuit, as good as it can be—and it can be very good, mind you—ultimately cannot turn hearts to God. Seeking for God in various tangible signs like numbers, emotional states, what’s happening in the news—this too is a dead end.
Through the prophet Micah, God chided His people and said, “Look, what more could I have done for you, Israel? I literally brought you out of Egypt—one of the greatest signs the world has ever seen—and yet you do not believe, and yet you do not repent. How much more could I have done for you?”
There’s one more thing yet—not this great sign of a geopolitical event or a mass movement of emotion, but rather a far greater sign: the sign of Jonah, the sign of a man bleeding upon the cross and who would rise three days later.
And it is that message, my brothers and sisters in Christ—it is only that message—which will turn hearts to God and could do this thing which otherwise is impossible.
Closing Prayer and Benediction
And so my prayer for St. Peter’s Lutheran Church is that this congregation, we would always remain committed, from generation to generation, to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. My prayer for you as individuals is that day by day you would lay hold of this gospel message—day by day reflecting upon the law of God, confessing your sins, and remembering with great thanksgiving what God has accomplished for you in Christ Jesus, in His death and His resurrection.
For you it is foolishness to the minds of the age, a stumbling block to the prevailing religious views, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God and the wisdom of God, and salvation and eternal life. To Jesus Christ be all honor and praise and glory. Amen.