Paul said that Christ sent him, “…to PREACH the gospel—and not with WISDOM AND ELOQUENCE, for fear of DILUTING (weakening) THE MIGHTY POWER there is in the SIMPLE message of the cross of Christ. The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is THE VERY POWER OF GOD.” (1 Corin. 1:17-18) We must remember WILL, the very power of God is present IN US and that power “COMES OUT” as we obey God and preach or share, from the Word of God, the simple message of the cross of Christ. We are told to, “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.” (2 Tim. 4:2-4)
When I received Christ as my savior, I was working as a design engineering in the Graphic Arts Industry. There were 4 of us engineers working on the first “WUSIWUG” SYSTEM, (the representation of text on screen in a form exactly corresponding to its appearance on a printout) for the very demanding graphic arts industry. We were all former “Aerospace Engineers” at the time Boing lost a contract to build a supersonic passenger jet, which caused a layoff of thousands of engineers. I said all that to explain my dilemma trying to witness to very “smart” people. I tried the wisdom and eloquence approach not realizing I was diluting the gospel. I was very unsuccessful and the Lord directed me to the above scripture.
Spending much time in prayer and seeking God about how to present the gospel, I came to realized God’s Word was full of “POWER AND LIGHT” so I started properly presenting the Word and saw the MIGHTY POWER OF GOD go to work. As a result people were getting saved and I was really getting blessed!!! One of the things I began to do was listen to the New Testament on cassette tapes that some one gave to me. Because of the distance I had to travel to work, I would go through the New Testament ONCE A MONTH.
“Your word I have hidden in my heart…THAT I MIGHT NOT SIN AGAINST YOU…”(Psa. 119:11)
Your Personal Pastor-Bill Stockham