Paul writes to the fractious Corinthian church, where factions have formed around favorite teachers. He cuts through the noise by pointing to the cross — which every worldly measure of wisdom judges as foolishness, but which those being saved experience as the very power of God.

From the writers we read together

E. Stanley Jones

Missionary Statesman and Evangelist, India

Jones spent decades presenting the cross to educated Indian intellectuals who found it intellectually offensive. He discovered what Paul knew: the cross does not commend itself to human wisdom. Yet Jones also discovered that when people encountered the living Christ crucified and risen, the 'foolishness' became the deepest wisdom they had ever met. The cross reveals a logic the world cannot produce — that the path to glory runs through self-giving sacrifice.

Paul says the word of the cross is 'to us who are being saved' the power of God. The present tense — 'being saved' — is significant. Salvation in Paul is not only a past event (justified) or a future hope (glorified) but an ongoing present reality. We are being saved right now, continuously, by the same word of the cross that appeared foolish. Where in your life does the cross's logic of self-giving need to be applied today?