Jesus Christ and Him Crucified

“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” — 1 Corinthians 2:1–5

With camp coming up, these verses have been on my mind a lot. I love them.
Paul, the writer of most of the New Testament, came to these people deciding to know nothing except for Jesus Christ and him crucified.

If we know anything about Paul, he obviously knows a lot more than this. But I love that he chooses to go this route in his ministry to the people of Corinth.
I love that, despite all the wisdom he has, he chooses to forgo it and submit to only knowing the plain and simple gospel of Jesus Christ.

I think we can learn something here.
There are so many ways we go about doing ministry these days.

Here are some things I’ve done in the past to try to win people over to Jesus:

• showing off my super wisdom

• talking in eloquent Christianese

• praying super long and awesome prayers

• using my human persuasion

• making Christianity attractive by being funny and interesting

• making sure I am rubbing shoulders with the right people and ministries

However, Paul makes a point here to resist that temptation.
Paul says, “I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling…”

Now, I’m not sure what Paul was exactly afraid of or what weakness he’s talking about.
But from the sound of it, Paul didn’t step into this space with a ton of self-confidence.

And maybe that’s the point—
to resist the poison that is self-reliance when it comes to ministry.
To recognize our own limitations and let God’s power flow from our very being.

But why doesn’t Paul try to persuade these people into a relationship with Jesus?
Why doesn’t he reveal all the wisdom that God has so graciously given to him?

Well, it’s because of the last verse in this paragraph:
“...my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

Again, I love this text.
Lastly, I found a quote online that read, “What you draw people with is what you draw people to.”

Let us love others by drawing them to Jesus Christ—with Jesus Christ.