1 Corinthians 2:1-5--Proclaiming Christ Crucified

1 Corinthians 2:1-5
English Standard Version

Proclaiming Christ Crucified​
2 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

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Paul is still talking about how the power of the cross (the gospel) is foolishness to those who are perishing and how God did not call many who were considered to be wise or strong.  Here Paul talks about how he specifically didn't come proclaiming the gospel in the way that the philosophers of the day or false teachers or false prophets could come bearing their ideologies and false gospels.

"For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified."  Another excellent verse for us to hang onto-each and every one of us!  Paul may have been an expert in other areas as well, but the only area that he cared that people know and understand and consider him an expert in was Christ and His crucifixion (and I assume resurrection as well).

Paul then says that he too is one who has been used when he was weak and that God has used him even when Paul's speech wasn't eloquent.  Paul claims that the Corinthian church has seen this for themselves.  It is the job of the Spirit to both give the words to the speaker and to give the interpretation to the listener, and God can do amazing things through the Holy Spirit where people hear what God intends them to hear, even when we are inadequate in speaking.  For this reason, Paul says that our faith should not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God (the next topic that Paul will cover in this epistle).