We come now to the third section, where Paul begins to think about how God works. It is not only that God has demonstrated His wisdom at the cross in what Jesus Christ achieved there; God also demonstrates His wisdom by choosing the foolish people of this world to come to Christ, not the wise.
Paul had an interesting experience as he traveled around the Roman world. He was a versatile man, being at home in three cultures. He had been raised as a Jew and had studied under one of the leading rabbis of his day. But he was born in what we call Turkey, which was essentially a Greek environment. So he knew Greek which was then the universal language of the world. And, third, he was also a citizen of the Roman Empire because of his birth. Thus, he was well acquainted with the Jewish, Greek, and Roman environments. And everywhere he went, he preached the Gospel.
In his travels Paul discovered that there was a difficulty where each one of these distinct cultures is concerned. When Paul went to the Romans, he knew he was going to a people who prided themselves above all else on their strength. They were proud of their army because they saw it as their salvation. It had brought peace to the empire. Their navy had destroyed the pirates on the sea. Their army had built the roads and maintained order throughout all the vast extent of the Roman Empire. When Paul came to the Romans, preaching Jesus Christ and Him crucified, what did the Romans think? They said, “Crucified? A Jewish preacher hanging on a cross? Why, if there was ever a picture of utter weakness, it’s that. We stand for strength. You have to be strong to get on in this world. You need money, and armies, and weapons. Why, a crucified Savior? What utter folly!”
When Paul came to the Jews, he found something else. The Jews were a very religious people. They had a long history, and it concerned great miracles done by God. When Paul preached Christ to the Jews, they demanded a sign and did not think that what Paul was bringing them was significant enough. They want God to come down on Mt. Sinai again. They want the waters of the Red Sea to be divided. They want the walls of Jericho to fall. Jesus simply did not do the kinds of things they wanted him to do. He did not preach the kinds of sermons they wanted him to preach. The Jews did not want to follow a Messiah like that.
Then Paul went to the Greeks. They were very proud of their wisdom. They really were a sophisticated people in the true sense of that word, those who cherished the wisdom of this world. Even in the time of the Roman Empire, the Romans wanted their children to be taught the wisdom of a Greek education. Paul went to the Greeks and preached Christ crucified and raised from the dead. And what happened when he did that? Well, when he went to Athens, as recorded in Acts 17, the people laughed at him. “The resurrection? Paul, you must be crazy. We never heard of anything so stupid as that. If you want to talk about salvation of the mind, that makes sense. Talk about rising above all of the physical, that makes sense. But a resurrection, a crucified Christ? You must be out of your mind.”
What did Paul do? Did Paul say, “Well, you better do a careful market survey here of the people who I’m trying to reach because it’s perfectly evident that the way I’m talking to the Romans, and the way I’m talking to the Jews, and the way I’m talking to the Greeks just isn’t getting through. What is it that the Romans value? They value strength. Well, let’s talk about how strong you can be. And then after we establish a point of contact, then we’ll begin to talk about the other things that aren’t quite so popular in the Roman mind”?
