The Foolishness That Saves

Why preaching looks weak and why God uses it (Part 1)

Christian preaching has always appeared foolish, not merely because it resists cultural trends or technological advancement, but because it runs counter to the basic assumptions of human wisdom about how change, persuasion, and power actually work. The apostle Paul openly acknowledges this when he writes that God was pleased to save those who believe through what the world regards as the “foolishness of preaching” (1 Cor. 1:21).

In making this claim, Paul is not suggesting that the proclamation of the gospel is itself irrational, nor is he conceding that the Christian message lacks something. Rather, he is deliberately contrasting the wisdom of God with the wisdom of man and exposing the fundamental inability of human speech, rhetorical skill, or technique to reconcile sinners to God.

What appears foolish to the world is not simply the content of the Christian message, but the means by which God has chosen to make that message effective. That God would attach His saving work to the spoken word, delivered through weak and fallible messengers, runs directly against human instincts. Yet it is precisely through the verbal proclamation of the good news of redemption that God has chosen to call sinners to Himself.

Preaching as Heralding

At this point, it is crucial to clarify what Christian preaching is and, just as importantly, what it is not.

Preaching is not the act of producing results or persuading hearers. Rather, preaching is the heralding of a message that originates outside the preacher and stands independent of his ability. The preacher is not commissioned to manufacture faith, but to announce what God has already accomplished in Christ.

This distinction lies at the heart of Paul’s argument to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 1:20-23). The saving efficacy of preaching does not reside in the preacher’s delivery, intellect, or rhetorical force, but in God’s sovereign decision to act through His Word as it is proclaimed. By binding salvation to proclamation rather than performance, God removes any confusion about where power truly lies. The preacher does not stand as a mediator of results, but as a messenger, hard stop.

The Ministry of the Word

For this reason, any faithful theology of preaching must flow from the ministry of the Word itself rather than from pragmatic concerns about success or relevance. Christian preaching is not the expression of human insight, personal reflection, or religious experience, but the public announcement of the actions of God toward humanity. In preaching, the church does not offer advice on how to ascend toward God, but declares what God has already done to descend toward sinners in grace.

The preacher, therefore, does not stand as an originator of meaning, but as one who speaks on behalf of Another. His authority is derived from God, not inherent to himself, and thus, his responsibility is not to innovate but to faithfully transmit the message entrusted to him. In this sense, preaching is fundamentally an act of obedience.

This understanding of preaching is not a later development within Christian history, nor does it spring from the early church. Throughout both the Old and New Testaments, preaching has functioned as the means by which God reveals Himself, declares His will, and makes known His redemptive purposes. From the proclamation of God’s mighty acts to the announcement of Christ crucified and risen, God consistently binds His saving work to His spoken Word.

This pattern reaches its culmination in the confession that God has now spoken through His Son (Heb. 1:2), who is both the content and fulfillment of all proclamation. Preaching, therefore, is not merely speech about God, but participation in God’s ongoing act of speaking to His people through the message He has appointed.

The Wisdom of God

The foolishness of preaching, then, is not a liability that the church must overcome, but a persisly the way that God has chosen to bring His people to Himself. By choosing to save through the proclamation of His message, God strips human beings of confidence in their own wisdom and redirects faith entirely toward His promised Son. This understanding of preaching humbles both the preacher and the hearer by insisting that salvation does not come through the technique of the preacher, nor the ability of the hearer, but through hearing and believing what God has said.

If preaching appears ineffective or unimpressive by worldly standards, it is because it was never designed to meet those standards. God saves by speaking, and He has determined that this speaking would take place through the ordinary and often unimpressive act of heralding His Word.

The church, therefore, must understand preaching and preserve it, out of confidence that God continues to work through the means He has appointed.

I know that we have already answered this question, at least in part, but if God has chosen to save through proclamation, was this for the early church, or does it reflect the way God has always made Himself known?

To answer that question more fully, we must look beyond the New Testament and trace the ministry of the Word through the whole of redemptive history. Which is what we will attempt to do in part 2.