Miracles first; message later.

1 Corinthians 2.1-5.

I grew up in a cessationist church; they believed God doesn’t do miracles anymore, and all their ministries and preaching was adapted to that worldview. So when they talked about sharing Jesus with other people, they never, ever talked about doing supernatural stuff as a part of it. No prophecy, no praying for people to be cured of various ailments; nothing like Jesus and the apostles did in the bible. Just… apologetics.

They didn’t always call it apologetics, but basically that’s what they did, and likely still do: Explaining why Jesus is Lord, what he did to save us from sin and death, encouraging people to believe this wholeheartedly, and say the sinner’s prayer. And ever since that church, I’ve read a bunch of other curricula about how to do evangelism; I even worked for an evangelism ministry for a year. Largely that’s what Evangelical evangelists focus on: Tell people how they can be saved, then talk ’em into believing it and embracing Jesus.

In contrast, in the bible, Jesus or the apostles would go somewhere, either prophesy or cure someone, and crowds would appear wanting to know, “What just happened? What’s this about?”—and then the apostles or Jesus would talk about God’s kingdom, and people would follow Jesus. Maybe get baptized.

No apologetics necessary! You don’t have to convince people God is real when they just saw God act. Yeah, they might deny what they just saw, or what it means, and we might need to challenge them not to. But that takes more commonsense than apologetics.

Anyway, in today’s passage Paul and Sosthenes remind the Christians of Corinth that this is what Paul did. Since he was already talking about earthly wisdom versus God, he just wanted to remind ’em he didn’t evangelize them with wisdom. He did stuff, and let the power of the Holy Spirit do all the speaking.

1 Corinthians 2.1-5 KWL

1Remember my coming to you, fellow Christians:

I come, not with an authoritative lesson,

nor preaching wisdom to you—

God’s now-revealed mystery.

2For I didn’t figure I knew anything about you,

except Christ Jesus, and this man crucified,

3and I became weak, afraid,

and greatly shaking among you.

4My lesson and my preaching

wasn’t lessons of wise persuasion,

but a demonstration of the Spirit and power

5so your faith wouldn’t be in human wisdom

but in God’s power.

And yes, cessationists are all wet. We can still do this. Always could. I’ve done it. Works great.

Or did you forget how you were saved?

I grew up Christian, same as a lot of Christians. I didn’t come to Jesus because of miracles or clever arguments, but because Mom is Christian, read me bible stories, had really good church attendance (and therefore so did I), and encouraged me to learn as much as I could.

Many kids ditch that childhood faith when they get older, because most churches’ children’s programs suck mightily at teaching us depth and maturity and God-experiences. (Cessationist churches particularly frown on the God-experience stuff.) But I stuck with it because I got those God-experiences. They eliminated every doubt I had about God. The Holy Spirit actually had to introduce new doubts to keep me from getting complacent about what I knew. Some of us gotta constantly fight that temptation to get complacent!

Anyway. Of the Christians who weren’t raised in church, they usually came to Jesus because they likewise had a God-experience. It wasn’t necessarily Jesus appearing to them, like he did to Paul and still does. Sometimes they have a crisis in their lives, try to bargain with God, and part of the deal involves following him. Sometimes he saves their bacon, or they got cured, and in gratitude they follow him. Sometimes they meet a prophet, and discover God is real, speaks, knows them, and loves them. Something shakes their worldview, and they deal with this new reality by coming to Jesus.

Rarely do people come to Jesus because they reason their way to him. Although it happens! God loves intellectuals too, y’know. C.S. Lewis is one of the more famous examples of someone who couldn’t deny that his atheism didn’t work; that there had to be a God; that ultimately Jesus is the right way to God. Lewis really appeals to intellectuals, many of whom love to talk about apologetics, and how to reason your way to God. But as a scholar I’ve talked with plenty of intellectuals, and pretty much all of ’em actually didn’t come to Jesus through their intellect. Just like me, they were raised Christian. Or, just like me, they had a God-experience.

And most of them kinda forgot that’s how they initially came to Christ Jesus. And when they share Jesus with other people, they don’t testify about their God-experiences; nor do they even think to try to give these folks a God-experience of their own. They talk apologetics. They try to reason people into believing in Jesus. They appeal to people’s minds or emotions. They have a small success rate… but hey, they’ll take it!

But I point to passages like this one. Paul didn’t come to Corinth with impressive, persuasive, brilliant arguments in favor of Jesus of Nazareth being the Messiah of Israel and savior of the world. He prophesied. He cured people. Really, he let the Holy Spirit do all the work. Really, we should be doing likewise!

He did it this way “so your faith wouldn’t be in human wisdom but in God’s power.” 1Co 2.5 Like a former pastor of mine used to say, “If you can be argued into salvation, you can be just as easily argued out of it.” Benjamin Franklin and Dale Carnegie used to teach that when you beat someone in a debate, you might’ve beat them, but you didn’t convict them. It’s only a temporary victory, ’cause now they’re gonna look for better arguments, and this way they’ll win next time. And that’s always the problem with Christian apologetics: Have these people really come to Jesus? Or have they temporarily conceded that Jesus is Lord, but give ’em time and they’ll find an excuse to follow some other lord? Like money or power?

This is why I encourage Christian evangelists to talk about real power: Share your testimonies of when God actually did stuff in your life. Encourage people to seek their own God-experiences. Give them a God-experience by praying for their needs or sharing what the Spirit tells you.

Save the theology and apologetics for after they follow Jesus. That stuff isn’t unimportant, but it’s not the best way to lead people to Jesus. The Spirit is.