When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.When I came to you, brothers, I didn’t come with excellence of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.And I, brethren, when I came unto you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.
3 sermons cite this verse
He says, When I came to you, brothers, I didn't come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom, for I decided, okay, this was a decision, I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. and I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom but in demonstration of the spirit and of power so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. again, there was a decision. You know, last night, Chandler talked about the safety belt. Right, we put on that safety belt, and honestly, my safety belt is sermon prep. I'm not talking about studying the Word of God. Okay? I study the Word. We should all be students of the Word of God. Study, study, study, study. But sometimes my safety belt is my sermon prep and just figuring out how to deliver it just right to where I know it can't fail. …
… And it's 1 Corinthians 2. In 1 Corinthians 2, verse 1, he says, When I came to you, brothers, when I came to you brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling. and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom but in demonstration of the spirit and of power so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of god This has been on my mind so much. I'm going, God, I don't know how to do this. Like, how do I come before a crowd in weakness and in fear and in much trembling? You guys, I've been doing this for the last 30 years I've been preaching. I can't even tell how many thousands of times I've gone in front of a crowd and just started speaking. …
… Listen to what he says. He says, when I came to you, brethren, I didn't come with superiority of speech or of wisdom proclaiming to you the testimony of God. Involves the delivery of the message, the proclamation of the message. You say, well, what do you mean the delivery of a message? When you and I look at that verse of Scripture, He says, I didn't come to impress. I didn't come with eloquence of speech. And you know, if you could ask most preachers, well, what ability would you like? And many of them would say, well, I would like eloquence. Listen to what Paul says. He says in this passage that spirit anointed preaching does not depend upon its eloquence to proclaim the gospel. It does not depend upon its intellect to explain the gospel, and it doesn't depend upon its human energy to deliver the message of the gospel. You see, the one thing God does not want us doing is depending upon ourselves for anything. …