God has gone to the other end of the line with the message of everlasting life. How has He done that? Simply by choosing that which is weak, base, and despised. You can see this by asking a skeptic, "Do you believe that the following biblical accounts actually happened?"
Adam and Eve, Noah's ark, Jonah and the whale, Joshua and the walls of Jericho, Samson and his long hair, Daniel and the lion's den, Moses and the Red Sea Of course he doesn't. To say that he believed such fantastic stories would mean that he would have to surrender his intellectual dignity. Who in their right mind would ever do that? The answer is simply those who understand that God has chosen foolish, base, weak, and despised things of the world to confound those who think they are wise.
CHAPTER 2 And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God.
2 For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
3 And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.
4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
6 Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nothing:
7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world to our glory:
8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
9 But as it is written, Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him.
10 But God has revealed them to us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
11 For what man knows the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knows no man, but the Spirit of God.
QUESTIONS & OBJECTIONS 2:14 "I've tried to read the Bible, but I can't understand it."
The Scriptures tell us that the "natural man" cannot understand the things of the Spirit of God. Most Americans would find it difficult to understand the Chinese language. However, a child who is born into a Chinese family can understand every word. That's why you must be born again with God's Spirit living within you (John 3:3). The moment you become part of God's family, the Bible will begin to make sense.
12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
14 But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness to him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
15 But he that is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
16 For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.
2:1–4 Qualifications for Evangelism:
1. A witness need not have "excellency of speech or of wisdom." He should simply declare what he has seen and heard.
2. He must not get sidetracked with unnecessary details, but focus on the essentials of Christ's death on the cross.
3. He must have "weakness" (not trusting in his own strength or ability).
4. He must have "fear" (in Greek, phobos, "that which is caused by being scared").
5. He must have "much trembling"
(awareness of his insufficiency).
Do you meet these qualifications?
2:5 If someone has been converted to the Christian faith by the wisdom of men, all it would take is the wisdom of unconverted men to talk him out of his faith. However, if he is transformed by the power of God, he is not solely motivated to Christianity by his intellect. The Holy Spirit has convicted him of sin, righteousness, and judgment. The motivation is the Law of God working upon his conscience. That has given him the knowledge that he has offended a holy God.
His repentance is therefore directed at God, who responds in mercy. Those who are converted by God cannot be talked out of their faith because they were not talked into it.
2:11 "Groanings which cannot be uttered are often prayers which cannot be refused."
Spurgeon 2:16 The Mind of God. We can get a glimpse of the incredible mind of God simply by looking at His creation. Take one (very) small part—the mind of man: The brain is a soft lump of tissue weighing about 3 pounds.
It is one of the most watery organs of the body, its outer tissue being 85% water. There is very little relationship between brain size and intelligence. Some very bright people have smaller brains than those who are less intelligent. The brain feels no pain because it has no pain receptors. It floats in fluid inside the skull, and the fluid (derived from blood) acts as a shock absorber. The brain stops growing in size at about age 15. Its surface is covered with folds. If it were laid out flat, the brain surface would cover two average student desks. The brain has four times as many nerve cells as there are people on Earth.
With its 10 billion neurons, it can record 86 million bits of information each day of our lives. Supporting, protecting, and nourishing these 10 billion neurons are 100 billion glia cells, which make up half the mass of the brain.
The brain continues sending out electrical wave signals as long as 37 hours after death.
Since nerve cells can't reproduce, you have fewer of them as you get older. Persons of 70 or 80 may have only 75% of the nerve cells they were born with. Nerve impulses travel more quickly than cars do, with some up to 250 miles per hour. If all the nerves were laid end to end, they would stretch almost 45 miles. If all the nerve cell connections— axons and dendrites—from a human brain could be placed end to end, they would encircle the earth many times. The dendrites alone could stretch an estimated 100,000 miles.
Let's now look to the heavens: "They defined the exact shape of the closest major galaxy, a beautiful spiral named Andromeda, containing more than 300 billion stars. The nearest of these is (an incredible) thirteen quintillion (13,000,000,000,000,000,000) miles, or 2.2 million light-years, beyond the Milky Way, a distance calculated by comparing the star's apparent brightness with a star of similar brightness and known distance from Earth. And beyond Andromeda lay billions of other galaxies." Solar System
(Time-Life Books) The incredible complexity of the human brain and the vastness of the heavens speak of the awesome power of the Creator's mind, and together "declare the glory of God"
2:16 Evolutionist Stephen Hawking wrote, "It would be very difficult to explain why the