The power of God

Here is something I've heard a lot of in Christian settings during the last few weeks: you can't start with the Word of God when evangelizing because it's not an accepted source of truth for our scientific technological audience today. Instead people say, you have to start with what people know and work your way slowly toward God and the truths revealed in the Bible. My question is this: At what point is the Bible going to be acceptable to them? At some point, we have to make the transition from worldly wisdom to godly wisdom. That will never be very palatable to those who are perishing, but it can't come soon enough for those who are called.

Suppose you are able to convince someone by purely scientific means that there is a Creator. Does that save them from hell? No! At some point, the gospel needs to be shared. What profit is it to convince someone of something, if they never hear that message? Isn't that the goal - that they should know Christ and experience freedom from sin? I think we have fallen into a trap of Satan that makes us ashamed of the truth. We fear to proclaim the awesome message of the Word of God because it is somehow not good enough for the intelligent person of today. This is a lie! Don't believe it! 1 Corinthians 1:18 says, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." We can easily see that people around us think the message of the cross is foolishness. Let's not believe that ourselves, because it should be the power of God to us.

This avoidance of telling people the truth from Scripture is something I have noticed from many Christians, myself included. We mask it by saying we don't want to offend or push people away, but the fact is we are ignoring the power of God that is in the "foolish" message of the cross. Have we somehow been convinced that it is foolishness? I wonder if this attitude is what makes our evangelistic efforts so frustrating and discouraging. I recently had a conversation with someone where I said the words of the gospel, but without much faith in their power over this person's life, because I knew she had heard it before. If we don't believe the message of the cross is the power of God for ourselves, we will certainly not be very effective in convincing other people. And the convincing is not our job anyway, but the Holy Spirit's (John 16:8).

Paul goes on to say in verses 21-25 of 1 Corinthians:
"For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."

Many Christians say that today we can't just start with Scripture, because people today don't know anything about God. He is not an accepted fact like he was 50 years ago. Well, that's not anything different from way back when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians - "the world through wisdom did not know God." Today we could easily substitute science for the signs and wisdom that the Jews and Greeks were looking for. I think it is futile to think that we should become knowledgeable in the world's wisdom in order to show it the power of God. Worldly wisdom and God's power are not compatible.

I am not saying we shouldn't study science and know as much as we can about how the world works. I am saying that this knowledge is not going to save anyone from sin. The message of the cross, however, will. A completely uneducated person who knows this message will be the one to aid a Nobel Prize-winning scientist into the Kingdom of God; the most educated and knowledgeable Christian who never gets around to telling the truth of the gospel will not.

God is so much greater than we give him credit for in our lives. Let us start living like we believe the power of the cross!