06 Why the Gospel Doesn’t Need Your Flashy Presentation (1 Corinthians 2:1-5)

Krisan Marotta: Thank you for joining me today for the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is Serious Bible Study Applied to Real Life. This is the podcast where we explain not only what scripture means, but how we know. This is the sixth talk in our series on 1 Corinthians. Today we're going to be studying 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verses 1 through 5. And if you're driving or jogging, you don't need to take notes or remember the details. I have lecture notes on my website, which you can find at the link below the podcast. Or you can go to wednesdayintheword.com/slash 1 Corinthians 6. Thanks so much for downloading the podcast. Let's get started. As always, we're gonna start with a little bit of review. Paul wrote this letter to Corinth in response to a letter that they had sent him and a verbal report about the situation in Corinth. And we're in the middle of a discussion that began in chapter one and runs through the end of chapter four. Paul started writing about the divisions in the church in Corinth and how he wants them to unify around the truth of the gospel. But the divisions or the factions in Corinth are a symptom of a deeper issue that he has in mind, and that deeper issue is the fact that the Corinthians have rejected the gospel message because they want a gospel that is more appealing to their sophisticated intellectual town, and they have rejected Paul's authority as an apostle because they want a more eloquent teacher like Apollos. Paul ended chapter one contrasting the wisdom of the gospel with the wisdom of the world. A number of folks in the Corinthian church find Paul inadequate as a teacher because he lacks this quality that they would call wisdom. Paul responded that the gospel is offensive because the cross is offensive, and the cross and a crucified Messiah appear to be a foolish message to the world when in fact it is a message of truth and wisdom. And Paul said he was not going to change his message or change the gospel to make it less offensive because then it wouldn't be the gospel at all. In chapter two, Paul then turns directly to the issue of how he spoke when he was in Corinth, and he says basically in the section we're going to look at today, chapter two, verses one through five, that I didn't come to impress you with my worldly wisdom, I came to teach you wisdom from God. So let's read the passage. This is first Corinthians chapter two verses one through five, and I'm reading from the New American Standard Version. And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God, for I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. So Paul is speaking about the year and a half he was living and teaching in Corinth. You'll recall, as recorded in Acts eighteen, that Paul went to Corinth. He intended to stay a short time, but he had a vision from God telling him to stay longer, and he ended up living and working and teaching among them for about a year and a half. Now the Corinthians are looking back on the time Paul spent with them and how he taught them, and now they find him embarrassing and lacking wisdom. Look at two one again. And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. That superiority of speech or of wisdom, you could translate that preeminence of speech or of wisdom. I think what Paul is talking about here is a teaching style that is more than just flowery speech. What the Corinthians want from Paul is not just a little more style and panache. They want him to speak in a way that the world around them would consider wise. They want him to win the admiration of the powerful and important people, and they don't want to be embarrassed by him. They want him to speak in such a way that the elite, sophisticated people of the town will say, Now there's a great speaker, that's a great guy. And you'll remember that at this point in Greek culture, the Greeks admired people who could debate any side of an argument and win. Rhetoric was in, and those who could professionally argue were admired. We talked about this in our early lectures, but just to remind you, in Greek history there was a very influential group called the Sophists. Their name comes from the Greek word for wisdom, which is Sophia. The Sophists were around a long time in Greek history. They were the philosophers and teachers of the day who were skilled in rhetoric and debate. They prided themselves on their ability to take any side of an argument and win the debate. In some ways you could compare them to our modern lawyers. They were hired by others to win their case, so they were a kind of lawyer, they were debaters, professional debaters, and they boasted that they could make the worse appear to be better. Now many people looked on the sophist with some contempt because they had this kind of have mouth will argue mentality, and like lawyers, in various times they were regarded with great favor and high regard, and at other times they were regarded with contempt. At the point Paul is writing, they are in favor. Their skilled rhetoric and debate was the fashion, and what people liked about them was their skill in speaking and their ability to persuade others. And this is the kind of thing the Corinthians are asking of Paul. They want him to be more like the sophists, more sophisticated, more eloquent, more persuasive in his speech, and Paul is saying, I didn't come with that kind of superiority of speech or wisdom. Seeking that kind of preeminence in speech was not my purpose. Now I don't think Paul is saying that the gospel is foolish. Paul is not saying the gospel message was foolish, and he does not mean that he did not care whether his message was wise or not. I think he sees the gospel as profound wisdom and profoundly true, such that a truly wise person would recognize it as true and the foolish ignore it. That was part of his point at the end of chapter one. Here he's saying his goal was never to be a great debater in the way Greek culture expected debate. He didn't try and fail to win the rhetorical stage because he wasn't interested in engaging the culture in the way the Corinthians want him to and competing on those terms. That kind of rhetorical contest was not even on his radar. Paul was not interested in winning the crowd by the attractiveness of his speech or the sophistry of his speech from a worldly perspective. As he argued in chapter one, the world by its very rebellious nature is going to find the message of the gospel foolish, and that's not going to change no matter how you say it. If you preach the gospel, you will not be seen as wise or profound by the world, and they will find it foolish and uninteresting. As we talked about in the last podcast, the real gospel is going to offend the world and to change it so that they like it is to change the message itself so that it is no longer the gospel. Here he's saying, As you Corinthians think back on what I, Paul, did while I was there with you, stop judging me for failing to do what I never set out to do. I never set out to win the movers and the shakers. I know I didn't win the movers and shakers in Corinth. That was never my goal. What did I set out to do? He tells us in two two. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Now this is one of those verses we need to talk about because it's one of those verses that is often quoted out of context. People borrow the language of this verse to make a whole lot of different points. And let me just take a moment to explain this as a point of Bible study. I'm going to give you an analogy one of my mentors used to explain it. I really like it. I think it's the best analogy. So suppose you found a new religion. You don't mean to, but say a hundred years after your death, people find your blog on this archaic device called the Internet, and they recognize your wisdom and your incredible insight into reality, and they form a cult religion around your writings. They read your blog as a kind of scripture. In one of your blog posts, you were writing it for a friend, and you were worried about the path that this friend was taking, and you believe she's about to make a seriously big mistake. And you write, think twice before you take any action. Now your followers in the distant future read that and they think, aha, we have found the key to finding peace, fulfillment, and happiness. Our founder has urged us to think twice. So they develop this discipline where they never make a decision without thinking twice. And they write books about it and they create little mnemonics that all begin with, say, the letter Q, and that helps them develop a 12-step plan that teaches them how to think twice before they make any decision. So everyone tries to consciously make it so that whenever a thought comes into their head, they think it again. Should I go get a cup of coffee? Oh, wait, that's one. Gotta think again. Should I go get a cup of coffee? Hmm. Now I've thought twice, my actions are blessed. And then some innovative group comes along and says to the twicers, which is the nickname for your followers, if thinking twice is good, then three times must be even better and they develop the thhrisers. Well, is that what you meant? When you said I urge you to think twice in your blog post, did you really mean to found a set of religious disciplines that are the key to life's fulfillment? Of course not. You meant something else. You were writing to a friend and you said, I want you to consider the foolish way you've been thinking about your decision and reconsider. Think about it again and come to a different conclusion. Your words were written in a specific context about a specific situation, warning about a specific course of action. Now hopefully you recognize that kind of understanding or interpretation as foolishness. It is a misunderstanding of what the author meant to say. Think twice is a common expression of our day. We recognize the idiom and we know why someone would say that sort of thing. And yet when it comes to scripture, that's precisely the kind of mistake we make. Paul says something like set your minds on the things above in Colossians or put off the old self and put on the new self in Ephesians or here in Corinthians 2 2, for I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and we start building a religion around those phrases the way I just used in my analogy about think twice. Yet looking at these verses in context, it doesn't take too much effort to see that's not really what the author intended at all. We have to be willing to let the biblical authors set their own agenda and we have to let them tell us what's on their mind. So the key to avoiding my think twice mistake is context. Context, context, context. And yet, sadly, to a large extent, I think modern American teachers no longer emphasize paying attention to a verse in context. When I was cutting my spiritual teeth, I was blessed to be in a church where good Bible study methodology was strongly emphasized. It was modeled from the pulpit, it was taught in small groups, and it was modeled every which way they could. But today I think it's rare to find that kind of teaching, and consequently we discover a verse like this and we embroider it on pillows and we run with it and take it to mean all sorts of different things. Well, in the context of chapters one and two and in the force of Paul's argument, here's what I think he's saying by I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Paul is not concerned that people like and respect him. Paul is concerned that people don't miss the truth of the gospel. The gospel is a message from the author and creator of the universe about how to find life. And Paul has claimed that he is one of the people that God chose to reveal this message to. So to reject Paul is to reject the truth about how to find life. And he's saying, Look, I, Paul, didn't bring Aristotle, Plato, and Seneca into the picture to dazzle you with my educational and intellectual prowess. I just told you the truth. I gave you the straight, unadorned truth about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, one of the ways I've heard people quote this verse, 1 Corinthians 2, 2, is to claim that Paul is saying he deliberately chose to ignore theology. So they would say, oh, what Paul's saying here is he chose not to talk about the complicated issues of theology or anything that might be controversial or might be divisive. He preached only the plain vanilla gospel that Jesus Christ died for your sins. And they argue to follow Paul's example, that's what we should do too. If people asked Paul a philosophical question or maybe how this concept fits in with the Old Testament or some hard theological issue, they would claim Paul dodged the question and just preached the gospel, and that's what we should do too. Well, hopefully from the context we've looked at so far, you can see that this is not Paul's point in context. But if you're not convinced, let's just consider what we know about Paul. Before Paul went to Corinth, he went to Athens, and there is a rather famous scene in Acts seventeen where Paul speaks on Mars Hill to a non Jewish, largely Greek crowd, and Luke records much of his speech. Since his crowd was highly interested in Greek philosophers and poets, in that speech Paul quotes several Greek poets and philosophers, and Paul claims that their statue to an unknown God is in fact the God of Abraham, and that he is going to judge mankind through Jesus Christ, whom he raised from the dead. Now some scholars conclude from this scene that Paul tried this kind of eloquent, wise philosophical speech in Mars Hill, and he wasn't any good at it, and so he gave it up. So they would claim, see, it didn't work on Mars Hill in Athens, so when he got to Corinth, Paul gave all that up and just focused on the gospel. Well, I disagree with that perspective. I think that's very unlikely from the evidence we have. And if we're going to try to follow Paul's example, we want to make sure we know what he did and what he's advocating in this verse. And I would say Paul is described in Acts as reasoning and demonstrating from the Old Testament. Over and over again we see him in the synagogue, and the phrase used is he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews, or he was reasoning and persuading. Acts tells us that Paul entered into debates and theological discussions and he defended the gospel. We know that he reasoned and debated in the synagogues, and we know that he defended the idea that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ. And we know that he argued and debated using the Old Testament. We have examples of it in Acts and we have examples of it in the letters he wrote. So our understanding of what he's saying in 1 Corinthians 2 2 has to fit with that evidence. And it seems to me we have a lot of evidence that he did reason and debate. And second, more importantly, this verse has a context. We have to ask the question, what is he contrasting this with? So this is what he did. What's he contrasting it with? And I think it's what he just said in verse 1. I did not seek to be preeminent in speech or wisdom, verse 1. Instead, I did this thing that I'm describing in verse 2. And from the argument he's been developing up to this point, we see the contrast is between speaking in a way to win the crowd through superiority of debate or eloquence or sophistry versus teaching a gospel that the world will find offensive. He's already claimed that the gospel and worldly wisdom are incompatible and that there's no way to pretty up the gospel without changing the message. So I think what he's claiming here is I chose not to alter or adulterate the gospel. I chose to preach the plain straight gospel without spin, without garnish, and without trying to make it an attractive worldly message. He chose to preach the gospel among them, the real actual gospel. Now what's he excluding? Well, I would argue he's not excluding debate. He's not excluding a discussion about what scripture means. He's not excluding a debate about theological issues or explaining how the Old Testament scriptures were fulfilled in the life of Jesus. He's not excluding the kind of discussions like the one he had in Athens as recorded in Acts 17. So what is he excluding? I think he's excluding the idea that he would wrap the gospel in some kind of facade of worldly wisdom in order to win people. He's excluding the idea that he would omit the cross of Christ to make it more seeker friendly or politically correct or change it in some way to make it more attractive because that's the discussion he's been having up to this point in chapter two. So now let's ask ourselves, well, Jesus Christ and him crucified, is that a simple, uncomplicated vanilla kind of message? And I would argue no. Just study Romans or Galatians and look at the richness and the depth of the gospel that Paul explains in his other letters. The gospel is a rich, deep theology that has far reaching implications into our lives. The gospel is easy to understand in one sense and on one hand, but it is also a deep life-changing truth that bears the weight of deep theology, philosophy, and exploring a life-changing worldview. But the gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified is not one the Jews of Paul's day were expecting. They knew a Messiah was coming and he was going to judge the world and right all the wrongs and put an end to evil, but they thought he would do it through the political overthrow of Rome and the physical reestablishment of the throne of David. But as we learn through the New Testament, Jesus had a bigger enemy to defeat. Instead of just conquering Rome or any political geographical oppressor, he conquered death, and he conquered death by dying. He conquered guilt and sin by dying on the cross and being resurrected, and he is our Savior because what we really need is saving from our sins more than we need saving from our current political circumstances. The biggest problem we human beings have is that one day we're going to stand before God as our judge and we're going to be found guilty and condemned. The only way to escape that judgment is through the cross of Jesus Christ. Jesus paid the price for our sins so that we might be forgiven and redeemed. But the cross is not the end of the story. After Jesus died on the cross, God resurrected him to prove that yes, Jesus was indeed the Messiah, and to prove that Jesus had conquered death and that those who trust him will be saved and rescued from death as well. And Jesus is coming back in judgment to conquer death once and for all, to right all wrongs, to To gather his people and to establish the will of God over a new creation. That's the gospel. That is a theologically rich message. And I don't think Paul would ever deny that. Rather, he knows that a message centered on the cross of Christ doesn't sell well. It's offensive to both the Jews and the Greeks. If we were to look honestly at the role Paul played in the history of the world, Paul is in fact one of the most influential teachers and theologians to ever exist. But still, even today, he doesn't get the reputation of being a profound and wise thinker because the world is still looking for something else. And if Paul were here today, I think he'd say, Yes, that's right, that's how people are going to see me, and that's okay because my goal was to preach the one true gospel. Then Paul talks about another aspect of how he spoke when he was with them. Let's go on to two three. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. He's saying, Furthermore, I did not expect to win converts through the overwhelming force of my charismatic personality and the fact that I'm such a strong hipster together person. I'm not the kind of guy that people are going to say, Wow, what a strong, powerful hipster guy that everyone notices when he walks into the room. Paul's saying, look, I'm not that kind of person. The job that I do is challenging for me. I'm nervous and afraid, sometimes I feel inadequate, and sometimes I don't think I'm up to the challenge. Remember in Acts eighteen, Paul had a vision while he was in Corinth. This is Acts eighteen verses nine and ten. And the Lord said to Paul in the night by a vision, Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no man will attack you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city. Notice the Lord begins this with do not be afraid any longer. That implies that Paul was afraid, and part of the implication of these verses is that Paul needed encouragement to continue. And I think Paul's referring to that kind of thing right here. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. He's saying, I'm aware that I'm not such a tower of strength and charisma that I could win everyone over to my side by sheer raw talent. As a speaker, Paul knows he's not the most impressive guy, and if you're going to judge him on the rhetorical standards of the day, well, he knows he doesn't fit the bill. He feels inadequate, he needs encouragement, and on top of that, he knows he's preaching a message that's offensive. So why should anyone listen to Paul? His message is offensive and he's not the best speaker. Why should you listen to him? Well, he tells us in four and five. And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. Hopefully by now you understand what he means by wisdom as he's been developing this argument from chapter one. But let me remind you, Paul is not saying that his message was irrational. He's not saying that the gospel is not well defended or thought out. He's not saying that he didn't take time to think through his presentation or defend it from Scripture. The issue in these chapters is the charismatic, dynamic message that the world finds attractive. And Paul's saying, I didn't want you to believe because I'm such an impressive speaker. I wanted you to believe the message because it's true and because God confirmed that it's true through this miraculous signs. So you Corinthians prefer intellectual brilliance over miracles, but your desire for worldly wisdom is immature. You want to be associated with someone who's impressive, but look what you're giving up to gain that. You're giving up the truth to appear impressive to a certain type of people. And Paul's been arguing that he didn't adapt or adulterate the gospel to make it wise in the world's eyes, or as we might say today, to make it more seeker friendly or more politically correct. Instead, he spoke in the demonstration of the spirit and of power. Now let's think about what he means by that. And I'd like to visit some other passages that illustrate what I think Paul is talking about. In Second Corinthians, there's a point where Paul gets more blunt and he tells the Corinthians this, this is Second Corinthians twelve, eleven and twelve. I have become foolish, you yourselves compelled me. Actually I should have been commended by you, for in no respect was I inferior to the most eminent apostles, even though I am a nobody. The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance by signs and wonders and miracles. There he's saying, You don't have any reason to question the authority of my message. You've seen the signs and the wonders that confirmed I'm an apostle. If you have any reason to doubt that I was chosen as an apostle, think again. Remember, you saw the signs and the miracles. You saw the power of God at work in my message, and the signs that accompany my message, that's the demonstration of the Spirit and the power. Then this is Romans fifteen verses eighteen and nineteen, for I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed, in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Spirit, so that from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. Here again Paul's saying that powers, signs, and wonders accompany his teaching. When he speaks, he Paul, God confirms that Paul's message is true and accurate with miraculous signs. So God confirms that Paul is an authoritative spokesman for Jesus Christ by these miracles. That's the power of God at work behind his message. So he's saying, I am not flashy or persuasive in a worldly kind of way because I want you to be confident that you're believing because the power of God is at work behind this message, not great rhetoric and sophisticated debate. Here's another one, Hebrews two, verses two through four. After it was at first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders, and by various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to his will. So the author of Hebrews is saying clearly God was giving gifts of the Spirit and doing signs and wonders in order to verify that the message of the apostles was indeed true. Now it's not just the signs and wonders, it's also the integrity of the message. Paul can say, look at the scripture. Doesn't the gospel fit with the Old Testament? Doesn't this fit with the words of Jesus? Isn't my message accompanied by the power of God that demonstrates and verifies this is the one true gospel? So it's the whole package. So his answer of why should you find my message persuasive? Well, it's not because of my worldly wisdom, it's not because of my raw, sheer natural talent or my charisma, it's not because I'm so smart or not because I'm a philosophical intellectual giant. You should find my message persuasive because God has demonstrated the truth of my message through signs and the work of his spirit. So why should you listen to me, Paul? Because I'm a messenger of Jesus Christ. Jesus chose me and commissioned me to speak for him, he taught me, he revealed his message and his truth to me, and I am an apostle of Jesus Christ that God has verified through miracles and signs. And notice his conclusion, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men but on the power of God in two five. That verse ought to give us great confidence. Our faith is not dependent on a flashy argument or rhetorical flair or a charismatic speaker. Our faith does not rest on the wisdom of men. It's backed up and demonstrated by the power of God. Now, how comforting is that? Christianity makes a very bold claim that it is a religion, that it was not created by mankind, rather it was revealed to mankind by God Himself. Now Paul is gonna end his discussion of what he did not do, and he's gonna turn to what he did do, and he's about to turn his attention to what is wise about his preaching, but we're gonna look at that at in the next podcast. To wrap up, I want to talk about some implications of this. What does this mean for us? How should we follow Paul's example? Well, this one we've already talked about a bit, but I want to reiterate it. Paul is not saying that he sought to be irrational or that he sought to be unsophisticated or uneducated or unenlightened in his theology. He's not even saying that he tried to speak plainly and without style. Paul can be very eloquent and articulate. What he avoided was trying to achieve success by tailoring the message to the way the world wants to hear it. He didn't seek to tell folks what they wanted to hear in the way they wanted to hear it. He recognized that while that path might achieve numerical success, it's not gonna make real converts. So while he might make himself more popular in the short run by changing the message, he's not gonna make actual real disciples in the long run. And that's a lesson for us. I think the real gospel confronts us with a contrast and a choice. The contrast is the way the world tells us that we are. The world tells us that we can find worth in our success and our fame and our fortune. The world tells us, no, there's no such thing as guilt. Love wins in the end, good intentions are enough, we're all fine as long as we don't hurt anyone else and our good deeds outweigh our bad deeds. And the gospel says that's a lie. You feel guilty because you are guilty before a just and holy God, and you have worth because you are made in God's image, not because you have a Harvard MBA or some kind of worldly accomplishment. So there's this contrast between the way the world says things are and the way God says they are, and that leaves us with a choice. Who do I trust? Who do I believe? Do I believe what worldly wisdom tells me is true, or do I believe what the Bible tells me is true? Do I believe God and His promises and His view of me and my sinful state? Do I believe Jesus was who he said he was and can do for me what he promised to do or not? That's a choice I have to make. I have to decide who am I going to believe, what am I going to count on, who am I going to trust? And we need to present that message to the world and not change it to make it more attractive to the world. Second, let's think about what culture today thinks is wise. It is very tempting to appeal to that. There are lots of elements of Christianity that are practical and that teach us how to find success in life and get along with others. And we can view the Bible as a rule book for the pursuit of happiness, and it's very attractive to tell others, well, here's what you need to do to make life work. Tell people what they want to hear in the way they want to hear it, and you can be very popular. And there are lots of elements we can use to make Christianity more attractive. For example, you can gain a large following by teaching good parenting techniques, good financial management and budgeting, and good family values. Family values sells. You can approach the Bible as a rule book for family values. Now don't get me wrong, we ought to apply biblical wisdom to parenting, budgeting, finances, and family values. That's a right and good thing to do, but we dare not substitute that for the gospel. Let me give you another example. Social justice. Social justice is also a very popular and attractive message. Who doesn't want to help the poor and bring justice to the oppressed? Teach that, and you can be popular. The liberal elites might even love you, but it's not the gospel. Same thing, health, wealth, and emotional satisfaction how-to's and psychology, those are very popular. And you can tailor your message to create a warm, fuzzy community and be so seeker friendly that you never confront seekers with the issue of Christ crucified. Or think about music, drama, multimedia, and these emotional waves of entertainment that make for a very popular church service. Or we can teach Jesus as liberator, Jesus as peacemaker, Jesus as the one who condemned the rich, Jesus as freedom fighter, Jesus as social justice warrior. All of those are things we can teach that make the gospel attractive, but they are not the gospel, not the complete gospel. The gospel is Christ crucified. And Paul is saying there is this central core of truth that we must teach, and that is Christ crucified. And we dare not substitute any other message for that message. If we obscure it, if we leave it out, then we have gone terribly wrong. We dare not dumb down or pretty up the gospel. The fact is all that dumbing down and pretty up stuff works. It attracts large numbers, but that doesn't mean it's right or that anything spiritually significant is going on. The spiritually significant stuff happens when you confront people with the big issues of life. Who am I? Who is Jesus Christ? What did he do for me? And why did he die on the cross? Finally, I think Paul's description of himself here is very encouraging. One of the implications of what he's saying is that to be a teacher of the gospel, you don't need to be a dynamic personality. You don't have to have charisma, you don't need to be a rock star, you don't need the right pedigree, you don't need the right letters after your name. That stuff is not required. What is required is a profound, complete, accurate understanding of the gospel, and if you have that, you're adequate. Now, no teacher today teaches with the authority of an apostle. We teachers today only have the authority of Scripture behind us. To the extent that we understand it and handle it well, then you should listen to us, but we do not speak with the authority of an apostle. What good Bible teachers need is a profound, deep word by word, verse by verse understanding of Scripture. And if you're unwilling to teach or to lead a small group or to explain the gospel because you think you don't have the right pedigree or you don't have the right letters after your name, or you don't have the right personality, give that up. The question we should be asking is, has God given me an understanding of the gospel? Does my understanding square with scripture? Do I handle scripture accurately and well using good methodology? Then great, teach. And when you lead or teach, do you see changed lives? Do you see the spirit at work? Large numbers are not the only measure of success. Crowds and media events may be successful, but they may just be a happening without any real spiritual growth. The goal is God at work in people's lives, producing the quiet growth and progress of maturity. And I have found that this kind of teaching style or presentation is one of the biggest impediments to training new Bible teachers, especially women. New teachers seem to be deathly afraid that they're just not good enough, and usually what they mean by not good enough is their presentation skills are lacking. They aren't rock stars, and they're afraid they won't ever be rock stars, so they refuse to even try. Or they spend ninety percent of their time on the presentation and only ten percent on the content. And I think Paul's words ought to speak to that kind of fear. You don't have to be a rock star to be a good Bible teacher. You have to understand the scriptures. Good Bible teachers are good because they make a good compelling case by handling the scripture with care and respect and using good Bible study methodology. And sometimes that's boring. But like Paul, our goal should not be to impress others with our worldly wisdom or our charismatic personalities, but rather to teach wisdom from God, to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word. I'm Kristan Murata, and my mission is to explain not only what a passage means, but how I reach those conclusions. If you've been blessed by this podcast, please leave a positive review on iTunes or Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform. It really does help people find the podcast. And please tell your friends about this podcast, especially what you've learned. Grab them for a cup of coffee and say, hey, it's what I learned today. 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