For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.”

The gospel by which we are saved and by which we live is not a complicated thing. It doesn’t require fancy words or esoteric, arcane, pseudo-philosophical terminology that is hermetically sealed in sibylline, cabalistic or ritualistic mysteries. That kind of language doesn’t stand up well to the ramblings of scholars looking for prestige and honors in their clever-sounding, but ultimately meaningless verbiage. The term “religious scholars” makes a mockery of the simplicity of the gospel message.

There is no making the message clearer than with the words Paul uses. We tread on dangerous ground, crowding the line between truth and error, when we seek to explain the gospel in other terms. It is not simply the words that are used, for those obviously change according to language and translation. But the concept of the gospel is really quite singular and simple to express. We must never complicate it as though we could say it better. There is much that can be said about the cross-work of Christ, but it all comes back to the simplicity of God’s grace.

Attempts to cleverly explain the message can easily obscure the message, and in so doing denude the power of the message. It is so simple that to the wise of this world it seems hopelessly simplistic. If the populace can understand it so easily, then the academics and religious elite think it must be wrong; it must be foolishness. Yet God pulls the carpet of wisdom out from under their ivory tower feet. That which the worldly-wise call simplistically foolish is what God calls powerful!

The gospel changes lives; the academics change only their opinions to garner the praise of their fellow academics and the awe of all lesser people. But their knowledge cannot change anyone, but rather enslaves them to real foolishness of worldly philosophy. But the cross of Christ, what He did in saving us from our sins through the gracious substitution of Himself on the cross for us, changes people forever—that is, those who simply believe.

This was God’s plan from the beginning, ever since Adam and Eve thought they knew better than God about eating the fruit of the tree that would give them wisdom through the knowledge of good and evil.

Lord, help me never muddy the message and obscure in any way the clear, simple articulation of the gospel message.