1 Corinthians 2:1-16

When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the testimony of God to you with superior speech 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 made not with persuasive 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.

Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are being destroyed. But we speak God’s wisdom, a hidden mystery, which God decreed before the ages for our glory and which none of the rulers of this age understood, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him”—

God has revealed to us through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For what human knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual.

Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else’s scrutiny.

“For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?”

But we have the mind of Christ.

Sermon Text

Last week I talked about the need for us to embrace truth and for our faith to especially be rooted in Christ’s truth. This week we continue our run of services focusing on knowledge of Christ by looking at the next step in that. If we believe that the truth of Christ’s life is the foundation of our own ,then we need to come up with tools to evaluate information as we encounter it and our life as we live it. If Christ’s life, death, and resurrection changes everything, then how do we understand that change beyond merely saying “Lord, Lord!” in Church every once in a while.

Words are a powerful thing and the ones we choose can make a difference in how people respond to the thing we say. Put more simply, you can say something that is true in a way that makes people not want to believe it. You can also say something false in a way that people are immediately attracted to. You can dress up horrors unimaginable as a gift to be celebrated and you can take a wonderful thing and make it sound horrible. Words, and the words we choose to use, can make all the difference in the world.

Recently in Sunday School we talked about scripture’s insistence that we are responsible for our words more than just about anything we do. Words pour out from our heart, and if we can control them – not just the words we say but the thoughts and feelings that produce them – then we truly control every aspect of ourselves. Talk is cheap, but talk makes a difference. In it, and in our ability to speak properly of all things set before us, we are able to regulate much of our life.

Beyond what we speak, we have to think about what we hear, and the majority of people are not good at evaluating truth or worth in information. That is why advertising works, why our world is so divided on what is and is not true. It is because we as a species are not good at hearing something and evaluating its authenticity or helpfulness, outside of its presentation to us.

Paul, continuing his teachings to the Corinthians about how they must unite under shared truth rather than quibble over different teachers of that truth, doubles down on the idea that he preached a singular, simple message to them – Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins and the restoration of humanity. Paul adds that, in teaching this, he used as simple language as he could to express his ideas. This is not a criticism of learning or more complex conversations, Paul almost immediately says that more established Christians can have more difficult conversations, instead it is a reminder that words can often get in the way of truth and goodness. Words distract and obfuscate, even as much as they clarify and enable.

Let’s put this more simply with two examples of bad speech. If I stand up here and say, “Christ is the presence of God among us in the hypostatic perfection of deity, expressed in his shared “Theotes,” with the other members of the trinity, produced as the telos of God’s soteriological mission in the world which will be completed in the eschaton.” Then I am not failing to tell you the Gospel, but I am using words that make it infinitely harder to grasp what I mean. That translates, by the way, to “Christ is the presence of God, fully human and fully divine, in perfect unity of being and will with God the Father and the Spirit, who is both the purpose and means of God salvation, as will be completed at the end of time.” See, easier to understand if I choose better words.

The second example of speech is not something which is good being presented badly, but something bad which is presented well. Way back in the history of the world, of the Church, there came a desire to see the Levant – the space between modern day Syria and Egypt – placed under European rule. The reasons for this were part ideological, part religious, part economic. Ruling parties wanted to take the land the Eastern Roman Empire had struggled to hold onto. The result were several successive military campaigns we now call “The Crusades.”

Marching across Europe, groups began to form not only of trained militia men, but peasant soldiers persuaded by national and religious fervor that they should take part in the battles. Entire towns were sacked by these bands of soldiers, not even in their supposed enemy lands, but in their own kingdoms. Reaching the main object of their conquest, Jerusalem, armies tore through the city several times across the conflicts. Killing, indiscriminately, the people cowering within. Across the crusades, many European Christians shed the blood of their so-called enemies defending their home, but also many innocent civilians – Jewish, Muslim, and Christian blood mingled together in the shared brutality of centuries of war.

At the time, and even by some people today, these wars were regarded as holy. They were dressed as heroic attempts to reclaim the homeland of Jesus, as a chance to bring Christian rulers to Eastern World again, and to “liberate,” the people of the area. I will tell you now, no war is holy. I’ll double down on it and say, no war of aggression can be called, “right.” Yet, every war is written as necessary, good, and holy, by the people who will send other people to die for the conflict they began.

Lest we think only world shaking conflict is the source of this kind of deceit, let me tell you a smaller story. Growing up I had a youth minister who made clear to us that, to obey him was to obey God. Why? Because he listened to the Spirit, so any decision he made must be God wanting it, not him. In faith and a desire to be obedient to God, we often fell for it, hook-line-and-sinker. Many churches teach a kind of grace that sounds good, God giving us infinite chances to repent and start again, but that allows us to be critical of other people as though they are not given that chance. “If they would change X, Y, or Z, they’d be real Christians, but since they don’t they are not saved like you or me!” The argument goes, and it sounds good because it lets us be holy.”

I could go on and on, it is easy to talk about the bad parts of life. I can name a thousand different bad faith and badly argued ideas. Yet, we are not called to be better at naming the troubles of the world, although that does come with wisdom, we are called to name and live out the goodness and truth of God. So, what lessons do I have today to hep us discern truth and to speak it?

Firstly, in identifying truth. Check the way the person presenting the information is talking. Are they trying to get you angry? To upset you into turning off your critical thought, or are they asking you to receive information and do something with it? Emotional messages can convey truth, but being emotionally invested in something does not automatically make it correct. Secondly, do not react to any information immediately. Read it, listen to it, and then step away and think about it for a bit. Thirdly, do some additional research into its claims before making any sort of determination on the validity of it.

In matters of faith, there are two questions I think you can add to these steps. Firstly, does it align with a worldview founded on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Secondly, does this teaching contribute to my development of one or more fruits of the Spirit: peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control? If possible, ask two further questions – does it align with scripture? Does it align with the teachings of the Church? But those are harder to apply. Oftentimes bad ideas in the Church are steeped in scripture, and tradition is not automatically correct because it is old.

In our own lives, we must commit to the same pursuit of truth. When we speak, we ought to ask ourselves if we are speaking something true or good, or just something that feels true and good. When we share our faith, it helps to do so in simple terms, not because we cannot use more complicated terms or make more complicated claims, but because the truth of your experience of God, and of Christ crucified is the best witness you could ever offer. Finally, we should speak in a way that is peaceful, patient, kindle, gentle, and that exhibits control over ourselves.

Words, powerful, deceptive, healing, and revealing. Let us hear them, read them, and speak them well. That our words may proclaim the simplicity of our salvation. – Amen.