Teaching Summary: The Way of the Cross - Part 1

Teaching Text: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

In the first century, crucifixion was not just an execution; it was utter humiliation. It stripped people of dignity and warned the public: This is what happens to powerless people.

It was so shameful that the Romans reserved the cross as punishment primarily for non-Roman citizens. If your leader was crucified, it would not have been something to be proud of or eager to talk about.

To the Romans, a crucified Messiah was weakness. To the Jews, it was a stumbling block. To the cultured world, it was absurd. The message of the cross is foolishness to those who perish.

Biblical scholars use Criterion of Embarrassment as one tool to determine the historical reliability of Gospel accounts. Details in the Gospels are more likely authentic if they would have embarrassed early Christians or Jesus’ followers. Scholars argue that authors wouldn’t have invented facts that undermined their message. The cross itself is the best example.

Early followers boldly proclaimed the cross’s foolishness because it revealed God’s power. Human history conditioned us to expect conquering gods, but the God story centers on a crucified Savior.

On the cross, we see a God: Not dominating, but giving himself in love. Not coercive, but self-sacrificial. Not crushing opponents, but forgiving them. This is not the God we expect. But it’s the God we see on the cross.

What does the cross reveal to us about God’s power?

That God’s power absorbs evil without retaliation.

That God’s power endures suffering rather than inflicts it.

That God’s power loves in the face of rejection.

On the cross, God enters human suffering, refuses retaliation, forgives his executioners, and overcomes evil through self-giving, self-sacrificing love.

Why do we look to the cross? Because it reveals God’s character most clearly in the scriptures.

If you’re unsure how Christians should think and act, grew up being told you’re a sinner in an angry God’s hand, or want to know God’s true nature, look to the cross. Look to the cross.

Many of us have distorted images of God. The truth is, our church back home, our pastor growing up, and our Bible study leaders in college may have gotten some things wrong from time to time. It wasn’t intentional. But those messages have caused us problems as we’ve attempted to live out our faith as adults.

We trusted the source and believed those distortions about God.

Where did the idea come from that God wants us to build a Christian nation? It didn’t come from the cross.

Where did the idea come from that loyalty to Christ is defended through hostility? It didn’t come from the cross.

Where did the idea come from that we repay evil for evil? It didn’t come from the cross.

We must take seriously the cross of Jesus and look to it for our understanding about what God is like. If our understanding of God is not being continually formed and reformed by the cross, our picture of God will remain distorted.

1 Corinthians 1:25 says, For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Is God foolish? Does God lack power? Of course not. God’s wisdom puts to shame our wisdom. God’s power is revealed in how God uses power differently that we do.

The cross is not a moment where the curtain is pulled back to reveal a God with no real power. The cross is the moment where God’s power is on full display.

When it is revealed that God expresses his power through sacrificial love. What looks foolish to the perishing looks like power to us who are being saved.

The cross shows us that love is stronger than violence, stronger than hatred, stronger even than death.

God’s love will have the final word.

If the cross reveals what God is really like, then the question becomes: Do I trust in this God?

A God who forgives enemies? A God who suffers rather than retaliates? A God who loves at great personal cost?

Or do I still prefer a God who uses his power the way I would, if I were God?