What does God use to save the world? Not impressive credentials, polished rhetoric, or a strategy that makes sense to the culture around us. He uses a cross — the seeming foolishness of the cross — something the ancient world considered a shameful, lowly way to die.
That’s the audacious claim at the center of 1 Corinthians 1:18: “The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
On January 25, a snow day kept Immanuel’s congregation home. So Rev. Christopher Ramstad and DCE Jason Glaskey held worship online — fitting, perhaps, that a service about God working through unlikely means would itself happen through an unlikely format.
“The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
1 Corinthians 1:18
The Problem Paul Was Addressing
The church in Corinth was fracturing over personalities. People were taking sides: I follow Paul. I follow Apollos. I follow Cephas. Paul’s response is almost exasperated: Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you?
The factions weren’t about doctrine — they were about preference, style, which leader seemed most impressive. And Paul cuts right through it: none of that matters, because the whole enterprise of Christianity runs on something the world considers foolish. It doesn’t run on eloquent wisdom. It runs on a cross.
Foolishness That Saves
That same Sunday, the Gospel reading put Jesus walking along the Sea of Galilee, calling fishermen. Not scholars. Not priests. Fishermen. Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And immediately — that word Matthew loves — they left their nets.
Isaiah had promised it centuries earlier: The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. The light didn’t arrive the way anyone expected. It came through Galilee — the wrong region, the backwater — through fishermen and a carpenter, through a cross that looked like defeat.
What This Means for Us
When the church gathers — even on a snow day, even on a screen, even in an ordinary building in Joplin, Missouri — something that looks foolish to the world is happening. God is present in His Word. He is calling, forgiving, sending.
You don’t need to have it all together to belong here. You don’t need impressive credentials or a life that looks polished. The cross is the great equalizer. It was foolish enough to save Paul. It’s foolish enough to save you.
Scripture readings from this service:
Old Testament: Isaiah 9:1–4
Epistle: 1 Corinthians 1:10–18
Gospel: Matthew 4:12–25
Watch the full discussion below.