From his experience as a veteran missionary, Paul understood that the gospel faces an obstacle of a typically human boast. The Jews ask for “signs”: God should demonstrate his power with proofs sensible to the human eye and meeting the measures of worldly reality. The Greeks look for “wisdom”; they are seduced by the attraction of an intelligence that controls things and events. For Jews and Gentiles, it is obvious that the Cross is weakness and pathetic folly (1 Cor 1:23).
Yet Paul experienced a total paradox. He saw that the Cross has an innate power, worthy of the power and wisdom of God: “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18). Paul’s experience made him understand that to adapt the truth of Christ to criteria of worldly wisdom—of the Jews or Gentiles—so as to please people is to empty the cross of its power. Either one proclaims the gospel of salvation as the “word of the cross” or one does not proclaim it at all. In the end, Paul decided to know and preach nothing except Jesus, the Crucified one.
