Discover The Word

Monday, December 15, 2008, Part 3

TEXT: Hebrews 11

IDEA: The disciples and the apostle Paul in the first century were stuck with a message that didn’t win an easy response.

PURPOSE: To help listeners realize that the basic message of the gospel is one that isn’t easily accepted in any society.

I. Do you think it is wrong for Christians to try to shape the basic message of the Christian faith to make it more attractive to non-believers?

Do you think Christian preachers are tempted to make the message more palatable or at least soften it, to make it more palatable? Is that necessarily wrong?

What might that legitimately involve?

Paul spelled out his philosophy of evangelism that describes the cultural adjustments he is willing to make to win people to Christ
(1 Corinthians 9:19-23).

Do you think that the early apostles were ever tempted to change the basic message in order to win people to Christ?

They adapted what they said to different audiences (see sermons in Acts).

When we say that they changed the SHAPE of the message, but not the message itself, what do we mean?

II. The message about “Christ crucified” was a difficult – even a dangerous – message to preach.

Paul admitted that when he wrote to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 1:22-23).

Paul preached a message that centered on a “crucified messiah.”

Why was his message a “stumbling block to the Jews” (Deuteronomy 21:22, 23)?

“To Jews the crucifixion of Jesus was a formidable obstacle that stood in the way of believing Him to be their appointed Messiah; how could the Messiah, on whom the blessing of God rested in a unique degree, have died the death on which the curse of God was expressly pronounced? It was written plainly in the law: ‘a hanged man is accursed of God.’ That Jesus came under that description ‘a hanged man’ was undeniable. The apostles from the earliest days of their preaching met this objection head-on.” (F. F. Bruce, The Defense of the Gospel in the New Testament)

The cross was like a stump of a tree in a dirt road and that the Jews stumbled over, causing them to fall flat on their faces. For a Jew, instead of “proving” the Christian faith, the crucifixion disproved it.

The Jews expected a triumphant Messiah who would do “signs”—great miraculous works that would “wow” everyone and restore and go beyond the glories of the kingdom of David and Solomon. The cross contradicted all of this. A Messiah hanging on a cross seemed a ridiculous way to picture the Chosen One of God.

They wanted a leader who would defeat the Roman government and give them back their land and their freedom. What did a dead Messiah have to do with that?

Do you think that Paul and Peter wanted to win Jewish people to trust in Jesus (Romans 9:1-4a)? Do you think that either of them seriously considered dropping “Christ crucified” and replace it with some message more appealing to the Jews?