Stumbling Blocks & Foolishness
*Mini 5-min long sermon prepared as part of preaching training in my church.
What do we mean when we say someone is a ‘stumbling block’ to others? I imagine something like this...
"Eh, you know your friend Jonathan that bible study leader, he keeps messaging this Jamie and bringing her out on dates 1 on 1. But he’s got a girlfriend already right - tell him don’t stumble her leh, how can he do this?"
You see, when we talk about stumbling block these days, we mean someone giving another person a wrong idea. We mean someone setting a bad example with the way they live their lives. But in 1 Corinthians 1, the way that Paul talks about stumbling block is slightly different. Paul tells us a stumbling block is something or, more accurately, someone unexpected. Paul takes the phrase to a cosmic level, he tells us that this ‘stumbling block’ affects the most important issue for all of humanity. This stumbling block affects what kind of God you believe in - whether it’s a God of your own imagination, or whether it’s the God of Jesus Christ.
The stumbling block Paul talks about refers to the Lord Jesus Christ, the power of God. Paul tells us that the Jews have a serious, terminal condition when it comes to believing in their God. As he says in v. 22, the Jews demand signs, they only respond to miracles and amazing deeds. But can you really blame them? Their history is deeply entrenched in miracles - the Living God spoilt them with 10 mindblowing miracles. He even helped them escape the superpower nation of that time by walking on a dry ocean bed pathway opened in the middle a sea. But the Jews missed the whole point of the signs - they were just hints telling them to focus on God’s ultimate salvation in Jesus Christ. Even in the Gospel accounts, with God Himself walking among them, the Jews ask Jesus “what sign do you show us for doing these things?”
Because of their addiction to signs, the Lord God 'trips them up' by with something unexpected. It’s not the way the Jews want it but there it is - the hero they’ve been waiting for all their lives, broken and bloodied on a Roman cross. There’s nothing flamboyant, there are no miraculous signs, there’s no magic show, nothing for them to buzz about - it’s just a dying man. They didn’t expect God to be so weak.
But other than stumbling block, Paul talks about something else - he talks about foolishness. You know, these days, when we say “you are a fool for love” or he's a "fool for her" - we imagine a person blinded by love, wasting a lot of effort, spending a lot of time and money on somebody. Only that person doesn’t quite return the same affection.
Again, Paul talks about foolishness quite differently from what we think. In fact, he says in 1 Corinthians 4 that the apostles, the church leaders are ‘fools for Christ’ or, in other words, they reflect foolish godliness the way Jesus did! In fact, Paul says Jesus is the very foolishness of God, the weakness of God. Well, if the Jews suffer from a fatal sickness which is their demand for signs, Paul says the Greeks also have a chronic condition - the Greeks seek wisdom. They have carefully worked out logic, they have painstakingly reasoned out complex philosophies. They are the kings of human thought - they’ve combined all of humanity’s knowledge and determined how the universe functions. If you know a little bit of Greek philosophy, the Greeks believe that true power and strength lies outside of humanity. Mankind is feeble and destined to die. And so they’ve created all kinds of warrior gods - Zeus the god of thunder, Athena the god wisdom - these are all divine gods, they’re not fleshly, they don't interact with weak humanity.
But Paul tells us how Jesus comes to deal with such lofty human ideology. Jesus becomes flesh, dwells among us, takes on carnal weakness. There’re no lightning bolts from the sky, this Jesus is not distantly aloof, he’s not divine-from-a-distance. This heavenly king comes to serve, this life-giving God comes to spill His own blood and give His own life.
If you want a crystal-clear picture of the God of the universe - don’t begin with your own expectations, don’t conceptualize with your own mind - start with Jesus Christ crucified on the Cross. Maybe, at first, who Jesus reveals God to be may not be what you expect, but He’ll show you who God really is.