Some six years after receiving that letter, I did a men’s luncheon series on Scripture: what it is, how we received it, how we understand it, and such questions. In one of the sessions I was to give an address on dealing with Bible difficulties. One of the illustrations I prepared for this question about Bible difficulties quoted this man from western Canada. I made the point that it is not really a question of overwhelming difficulties; it is a question of how you approach the Word of God. Will you give it the benefit of the doubt? Will you try to understand it? Or will you come to it first of all with the question, Are there difficulties?

In 1 Corinthians Paul is talking about how people suppress the knowledge of God in nature. He says the result is what he quotes from the Old Testament: "No eye has seen, nor ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him." Is that because there is nothing to be seen? No, it is there to be seen. We just do not see it. Is that because God has not spoken? No, he has spoken, but we do not hear. Is that because the Gospel cannot be understood by the operation of the human mind? No, the Gospel is the great wisdom of God. But although we have minds, we do not put them to task.

Yesterday we looked at how the Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans were all offended by Paul’s message of the cross. So what did Paul do when faced with this opposition? When he preached to the Romans, he preached Christ crucified in weakness, but in the power of God. When he preached to the Jews, he preached Christ, who came not as a sign, but to die and give his life as a ransom for many in the power of God. When he preached to the Greeks, he did not preach Christ, the wisdom of man, but Christ, the simple Gospel, the simple Savior who died in order that we might be saved. And that was the power of God to the Greeks, as well as to the Jews, as well as to the Romans.

Yesterday’s lesson mentioned Carl Sagan’s book and television series on evolution, Cosmos. Today I want to point out the great errors in Sagan’s approach to things. Let me suggest a few. The first is the error of supposing that all there is can be observed by the human eye. I cannot see anything spiritual, but I can see planets, and atoms, and the relationships between those things. So I assume that that is all there is. If all I can imagine is only what I can see - and that is what Sagan is talking about - that is utter foolishness because at the beginning, in a most unscientific way, it excludes the possibility of the existence of a God who stands over and beyond the creation.

The believers at Corinth are commended by the apostle Paul in the first seventeen verses of chapter 1 for what they have and are in Christ. But in practical terms, they were rent with all kinds of divisions and personal loyalties. As we read on in the letter, their troubles unfold.