We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
Nothing but Christ Crucified
One of the most remarkable expressions of the all-encompassing nature of the cross is reflected in an incidental, but extremely important, comment that Paul made in his First Letter to the Corinthians. He noted that when he brought “the testimony of God” to Corinth, he hadn’t come “with eloquence or human wisdom”. He instead “resolved to know nothing…except Jesus Christ and him crucified’ (I Cor. 1:1-2).
While this statement may be somewhat hyperbolic (did Paul really resolve to know absolutely nothing except Christ crucified?), it clearly implies that, for Paul, the entire gospel was found in the message of the cross. It implies that, when we understand what took place through the “foolishness of the cross,” we understand all that we need to know about God and about other humans. When you know the character of God revealed on the cross and what he thinks about us, as revealed on the cross, you’ve got the essence of all you need to know about anyone.
Excerpt from Benefit of the Doubt, pages 233-234
Photo credit: jean louis mazieres via Visualhunt / CC BY-NC-SA
Category: General
Tags: Cross, Good News, Identity in Christ, Jesus
Related Reading
Christ the Center
The center of the Christian faith is not anything we believe; it’s the person of Jesus Christ. The foundation of my faith is a person, not a book and a set of beliefs about that book. Rather than believing in Jesus because I believe the Bible to be the inspired Word of God, I came…
The Cross and the Witness of Violent Portraits of God
In my previous post I noted that the prevalent contemporary evangelical assumption that the only legitimate meaning of a passage of Scripture is the one the author intended is a rather recent, and very secular, innovation in Church history. It was birthed in the post-Enlightenment era (17th -18th centuries) when secular minded scholars began to…
The Deep Truth
In last weekend’s sermon at Woodland Hills Church, Greg talks about the deep truth of your life that is real, but sometimes difficult to experience as real. How do we live in this deep truth when it’s so hard to feel it? You can download sermon audio, video and other resources on the Woodland Hills…
Naturalism and the Historical Jesus
The quest for a “merely human” Jesus The various radical views of Jesus now being advocated by certain scholars and propagated through the press are buttressed by a number of different historical arguments. Some argue, for example, that the evidence from the first century suggests that Jesus was not unique in his healing ministry. Or,…
The REAL Problem with Divine Violence in the OT
As I mentioned in my previous blog, while I will continue to offer video-blogs responding to questions that come in, I’m also planning on sprinkling in reflections based on my forthcoming book, Crucifixion of the Warrior God, over the next couple months. Today, I just want to state what I consider to be the real…
Oh Constantine
Once upon a time there was a Roman Emperor named Constantine who used the enemy-loving Jesus to kill his enemies. What does this have to do with us? Find out: