In 1958, John Stott, a famous English preacher, led a mission in the University of Sydney, Australia. At the last meeting, Stott was ill and losing his voice. Just before he got up to speak, someone prayed that God's power would be made perfect in Stott's weakness. He croaked his way through his message and at the end, invited people to give their lives to Christ. A huge crowd responded. Each time Stott went back to Sydney after that, countless people would go up to him and tell him that they gave their lives to Christ on that night in 1958-when he had barely any voice.²

When the apostle Paul first went to Corinth, he, too, arrived ″in weakness with great fear and trembling″ (1 Corinthians 2:3). He had ″resolved to know nothing . . . except Jesus Christ and him crucified″ (v. 2). The Greeks of Paul's time would pay to hear great orators; listening to speeches was one of their pastimes. Paul could have tried to engage them with ″eloquence or human wisdom″ or with ″wise and persuasive words″ (vv. 1, 4), but he didn't. Instead, he chose to speak the simple message of a God who so loved this world that He gave His only Son to die on a cross, so whoever believed in Him would not die but have eternal life (John 3:16). That was all Paul had. As he preached that message, the Holy Spirit of God came and people were born again (1 Corinthians 2:4-5).

The trouble is, the cross of Jesus offends. We'd like to think that we can get to God on our own, but the cross says: ″You can't, you're not good enough!″ The cross says: ″You need God to come and save you!″ And we don't like that, either. As one of the characters in the play Major Barbara by playwright George Bernard Shaw says, ″Forgiveness is a beggar's refuge . . . we must pay our debts.″³

If you've ever tried to share the cross of Jesus with people, you know they can be offended. Yet, Paul stuck with telling people this very gospel that offends, so that their faith would rest not on his clever words but on God's power (v. 5). A wooden cross on a lonely hill? How powerful could such a message be? Yet, that's exactly the place where God chose to display His wisdom and power. And that's where our faith must rest-not in clever people or impressive speakers, but in the cross of Jesus.

Thank You, dear Father, for entrusting a powerful message of a Saviour who died on a cross to weak and scared people. Help me to point people to Jesus and to trust Him completely.