Folly and Power

1 Corinthians 1:18 - "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

In 1997, an English professor at Syracuse University named Rosaria Champagne wrote an op-ed in the local newspaper attacking the Promise Keepers rally that had come to town. She was a leader in the gay and lesbian community in Syracuse, an articulate feminist scholar, and by her own published description she regarded the Religious Right as having a politics of hatred. The article drew a flood of mail. Most of it sorted easily into two piles, supportive and hostile. One letter she couldn’t sort.

It came from Ken Smith, the pastor of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in her own Syracuse neighborhood. The letter was kind. It was inquiring. It asked her how she had arrived at her interpretations. It didn’t argue with her article. It asked her to defend the presuppositions underneath it. She couldn’t decide whether to answer it or throw it away. Eventually she did both. She threw it in the trash, then later fished it out.

She called Ken. He and his wife Floy invited her for dinner. Then another dinner. Then another. Over the next two years she ate at their table again and again. They prayed openly in front of her. They asked her about her work. They didn’t insist she become a Christian. They lent her books. They listened.

In 1999, after roughly two years of meals and conversations and a steady self-directed reading of the Bible, Rosaria Champagne gave her life to Christ. She would later describe what happened as "a train wreck." The version of herself she had built for almost four decades collapsed. Her career, her relationships, her sense of being right about the world, all of it had to be rebuilt around a Person she had only recently come to know. Today she is Rosaria Butterfield. A pastor's wife. A homeschooling mother. A writer whose memoir, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, has helped countless other unlikely converts recognize themselves in her story.

Now read 1 Corinthians 1:18.

"For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

Two participles do enormous work in this verse, and they’re easy to miss in English. The phrase "those who are perishing" translates one Greek word, apollumenois. The phrase "those who are being saved" translates one Greek word, sōzomenois. Both are present tense, ongoing, in motion. Paul is naming two directions of travel. Both participles are happening today, in the hearer of the gospel, in the response of the heart to a particular Man on a particular cross.

This is what Rosaria Butterfield's two years of dinners actually were. A slow movement. A gradual swing of the heart from one participle to the other. The word of the cross, which had been folly to her in 1997, had become the power of God by 1999. The cross itself hadn’t changed in those two years. Christ hadn’t become more persuasive. He hadn’t adjusted His arguments to suit her tenured intellect. What changed was the location of her heart in the present-tense story Paul is naming.

And here’s what is glorious about this verse: the cross is the same object for everyone. There aren’t two crosses, one for the unbeliever and one for the believer. There’s one cross. One crucified Savior. One stream of blood from one wounded side. And the same object that one heart finds embarrassing and beneath itself, another heart receives as the power of the living God.

The difference isn’t the cross. The difference is where the hearer is on the road of the two participles.

Paul writes the verse with both groups together because both groups are real right now. There are neighbors living next door to you for whom the cross hasn’t yet stopped feeling foolish. They might be polite about it. But the word of the cross hasn’t yet broken through to be felt as power. And there are people, perhaps you, who two years ago couldn’t have imagined where you are today, who have watched the cross move from a sentimental symbol to the unshakeable foundation of how you breathe.

The Christ who carried Rosaria across that movement is the same Christ working in every present-tense reader of this verse right now. He’s patient enough for two years of dinners. He’s patient enough for whatever movement you’re still making.

Today: Where on the road of the two participles are you right now?

Be honest. The cross is the power of God in some seasons of our lives in ways it has not yet become in others. There may be places in your life where the cross feels powerful: the forgiveness you’ve received, the family member you’ve made peace with, the version of yourself you no longer have to defend. There may also be places where the cross still feels quietly foolish: a fear you can’t bring it to, a sin you can’t bring it to, a future you’ve decided it can’t really change.

Prayer: "Father, I worship You for a cross that doesn’t move when my heart does. Move my heart today, both in the places I’ve left in shadow and in the corners where the cross still feels small. Thank You for saving me! In Jesus' name, Amen."

-PK