2 Comments

1. acrumrine says:

   April 3, 2010 at 6:40 am

   I was sitting in our Good Friday service. It was a “Catacomb” service to give the feel of the early church as it had to meet and worship in secret for fear of persecution by the Roman authorities. At one point my pastor quoted 1 Cor.1:18 “for the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing…” I am having a difficult time with it the verse because I was immediately struck with the conviction that I did not want to worship in the catacombs and secret because it is exactly the message the world is crying out for! My thoughts flashed to one of my favorite movies “Stranger than Fiction”. The very point of the movie was the world that is lacking and needs the kind of person who would knowingly, willingly die to save some one else. The movie was not written by believers, yet they are asking for, desiring the very message of the Cross.
   I need to work this out. How is it that Paul writes that the perishing finds the message of the Cross foolish when they in fact want that very thing? We do not desire the message of the cross simply because “we all have a God shaped hole placed in our soul”, is it? Am I missing the message of the Cross? I thought it was that God the Creator of all things knowingly and willingly chose to die in my place. That I, His creation, might be saved from the death I deserve and be restored to the relationship with Him as He intended at the very creation of the earth. (not my most thought out phraseology but pretty close to what I think)
   How is that message foolish if that is what we as people really want from anyone? I am not basing my premise wholly on a movie that was not a major box office draw. Many, if not all, of the individuals and couple that I see each day in my office could easily boil the root of their struggles to wanting some one to love them the way Christ loved us through the Cross, “that God the Creator of all things knowingly and willingly chose to die in my place. That I, His creation, might be saved from the death I deserve and be restored to the relationship with Him as He intended at the very creation of the earth”. How again is the message of the cross foolishness to the perishing?

   Aaron
2. melinda9678 says:

   September 3, 2010 at 1:49 pm

   I believe that the word Perish in this context means those who give up the ghost or depart from this life…meaning the Christian life. To those who are atheists the word is foolishness to them because they choose not to embrace it. They choose to depart from this life, not necessarily life itself, but the life that God has chosen for them. In a sense they are perishing spiritually from God’s life but not from his love. But for those of us who are saved…meaning those of us who embrace the teachings and belief that Jesus died on the cross to set us free from sin…to us the power of God is in the word/bible. Those of us who read and interpret and try to understand can also gain comfort and inspiration from the word because we choose to embrace it. It reminds me of watching Bill Maher, who considers himself an atheist. He mocks the story of Jesus dying on the cross and cannot fathom how society can believe that a man died and rose again and ascended into Heaven (or floated as he puts it). While this story comforts believers and saved individuals, it causes confusion and is foolish to those who choose not to live with God but to depart from Him (perish from him).