In the New Testament Paul says that "we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles" (1 Cor. 1:23). This was paraphrased by the great missiologist Leslie Newbigin in his ground-breaking book Foolishness to the Greeks by which he meant "the Gospel is foolishness to the Greeks" – the Greeks being the pagan, unbelieving world outside of Judeo-Christian sensibilities. It is foolishness because it is not understood and goes against the nature of this world which is ruled (for the time being) by darkness. Darkness has always struggled to understand light as it says in John 1:5 "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not understood it." Even within ourselves our very dark nature struggles to understand the light of Christ’s Spirit within and the battle often rages on.

 

I think as much as the gospel is foolishness to the world in the sense that the world does not understand it, the world is often foolishness to those of us who purport to have the gospel. I was almost 30-years-old when I became a Christian and I was every bit the worldly person you could find…now, less then 10 years later (you do the math) I find I am confused and paranoid about the very things I used to embrace. I wonder if this confusion, this lack of understanding can impede communication with the world? Is it a wall of cultural prudishness or is it a wise conservativeness? If it is a wall then it is false and needs to be torn down as Paul writes in Ephesians because it is a "dividing wall of hostility" and Christ will not stand for it. If it is wisdom it needs to be nurtured.

 

Clearly discernment is required here. Things are usually not as clear cut as we would like and I think this question is no different…I think the answer is that a bit of both exist in our lives…a very real and wise caution with the world mixed with an unhelpful, cultural prudishness/snobbery that needs to be cleansed away.