What is the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard? Most of us have heard some pretty daft things in our time, and we can only hope that it wasn’t us that said it.
What about the most offensive thing anyone’s ever said in your presence? I can think of a couple of occasions where someone has said something so shocking it’s left me completely speechless.
How about this: “The omnipotent and all wise God voluntarily took on the limitations of human nature, then let us kill him in the most degrading and dehumanising way known to man. Oh, and the path to eternal joy looks like taking up your cross and following him”?
To most people in ancient Corinth, the message of the Cross was about as stupid and offensive an idea as you could come up with. But Paul says that beneath an appearance of folly and weakness is hidden God’s power and wisdom. The real shock however is that the offensiveness and seeming folly are deliberate. Because the Gospel is meant to turn our ideas of power and wisdom upside down.
Ed