1 Corinthians 1:23

The context

Paul writes to a congregation he founded, now split into factions around named leaders and competing claims to wisdom. The first four chapters attack the assumption that the gospel should satisfy the standards of rhetoric and philosophy the city admired.

Verses 18-25 argue that the word of the cross is folly to those perishing and power to those being saved. Verse 23 gives the content of the proclamation and the two reactions to it; verse 24 gives the counter-reaction of those called. The paragraph concerns the message, not the technique.

The words

"We preach" is kēryssomen, from the verb for a herald's public announcement — proclamation by an authorized messenger rather than argument or persuasion. The present tense marks it as the standing practice of the mission.

"Christ crucified" is Christon estaurōmenon, a perfect passive participle, "the having-been-crucified one." The crucifixion is not a past episode left behind but a description of the Messiah as now proclaimed.

Skandalon originally names the trigger of a trap, the thing that makes an animal stumble; by the New Testament period it means an offense that causes someone to fall. Mōria is plain "foolishness," used deliberately against the sophia the Corinthians prized. The collision of vocabulary is the argument.

What this passage establishes

The content of apostolic preaching is a Messiah executed by crucifixion. That content is intrinsically offensive to one set of expectations and absurd to another; the offense lies in the message, not its delivery.

What it does not establish

It does not license deliberately obnoxious presentation. Paul says in 2:1-5 that he came without impressive rhetoric, and in 9:19-23 that he became all things to all people. The stumbling block is the crucified Christ, not clumsiness in the speaker.

It does not mean the gospel is irrational. "Foolishness" is the world's verdict, quoted and then overturned; verse 24 says the same message is God's power and wisdom to those called. Paul contests a standard of rationality, not reason itself.

It does not claim that no Jew believed. Paul is a Jew writing as a Jew; "Jews demand signs" describes a pattern of expectation, not a census of unbelief, and Acts records many who did believe.

How the church has read it

Luther's Heidelberg Disputation of 1518 built its theology of the cross on this paragraph: God is known in suffering and weakness rather than displays of power, and the theologian of glory wants God on other terms. Calvin read it as a warning against accommodating the gospel to the tastes of the powerful. Tertullian is routinely quoted here for "I believe because it is absurd," a paraphrase of a sentence he wrote rather differently.

First pass, written October 2026. Corrections welcome.

Cited in these answers

• Jesus is a borrowed myth dressed up like a Jew. He never existed. There is zero sufficient evidence that Jesus ever existed.
• Miracle stories were crafted after Jesus died, and then included just to make Jesus look like a Jewish wonder-working messianic figure. It's called messianic fiction.
• Didn't Paul invent Christianity? Why should I trust letters Jesus never wrote?
• Did Jesus really rise from the dead — and what is the actual historical evidence?
• People make up fantastic, epic, 'harmonious' stories all of the time. Lord of the Rings comes to mind. Perhaps Gandalf is the true Messiah! Read the Bible if you want - I prefer non-fiction.

Part of Scripture, Opened — the exegetical layer behind every citation on this site. Scripture quotations are from the ESV.