Scripture Reference: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31

The apostle Paul was no anthropologist. When he speaks here of Jew and of Greek he is most likely not saying that a specific race, even less a specific religion, makes its members all the same. He is speaking about the mental types represented then, more or less, by different ethnic communities, and present in any age. We are all more or less Greek and more or less Jewish in this sense.

When Paul states, “Jews demand signs,” he is speaking not so much of a religion or of a race as of a culture. By Jew he does not mean somebody like the actor/producer, Woody Allen; he means people who want to see proofs of God’s power. The sign is an evidence of power. The people in the Gospels were asking Jesus for a sign to accredit His ministry. They wanted the kind of performance from Him that would save them from the risk of trusting Him by assuring them that God was on His side.

There have been cultures in which power was less important than something else: pleasure or wisdom, wealth or sex. But in the heritage of Abraham, Moses, David, and Elijah, Jews and Christians have learned to expect God to act powerfully in the interest of justice. Other religions may see the world as static and history as cyclical; the children of Abraham see it as drawn ahead by promises and driven by memories of past deliverances. The prophets proclaim God at work. Zealots believe they help God with His victory. Christian emperors and crusaders triumph in His name. The empire then assumes it spreads His glory around the world.

For good and for ill we are their heirs. We ask of a command, “Will it work?” We ask as well of a moral principle, “What will it produce?” If we are told to renounce violence, we ask, “But then what should we do if someone threatens our friends or our values?” Nationally we ask, “What would you do if the Russians came?” or “How would we keep the peace if no one would defend the country?”

The Hebrews differ from the Hindus, for whom divine power and light are diffused through multiple complex and contradictory forms. They differ from the Buddhists, for whom the power of events in historical experience needs to be downplayed or even denied. They also differ from tribal cultures where no change is expected and the gods are the guardians of stability. The JHWH of the Hebrews is a mover and shaker. At Sinai He was known in a storm cloud. He saved His people from Pharaoh by mobilizing the sea. The God of Joshua, of the judges, of Saul and David helped His people, against their enemies, by mighty saving and oft times miraculous acts.

Mary was told that her child should be named Jesus, because he would liberate His people. It was no surprise that some thought of such liberation after the model of Moses and Joshua, or after the more recent model of the Maccabean revolt, which had for a while set up Jewish priests as kings of an independent Israel.

Some people in Jesus’ time wanted Him to take that path. For them the weakness of the cross was a barrier to faith. There were still such people in Paul’s time. When Paul was taken prisoner in Jerusalem, we read that the Roman tribune mistook him at first for the leader of a group of four thousand nationalist rebels. A decade later Jerusalem was in fact “liberated” by one Menahem, who held it against the Romans for a few months, and provoked the city’s destruction.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, ESV © 2016 by Crossway Bibles.
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