What follows is an excerpt from episode three of season three of the Blessed Hope Podcast which covers Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.

What was characteristic of Paul’s preaching was its content–Christ and him crucified. Even though he was not worldly-wise, nor did he seek to impress the Greeks, nevertheless, in verse 4 of 1 Corinthians, Paul speaks of his preaching as accompanied by “a demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” Readers of 1 Corinthians have long debated what Paul means by this.

The context tells us that Paul does not mean by this demonstration of the Spirit’s power what we might call “signs and wonders” as contemporary Pentecostals contend. Rather, “the power of the Spirit is linked with the proclamation of the cross.”[1] Or, as Ciampa and Rosner put it, Paul’s stress upon his own weakness being overcome by the power of God in his preaching of Christ crucified, means that “power here is about moral conviction, not miraculous display.”[2] God’s power supplants the preacher’s weaknesses.[3] Paul said much the same thing to the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 1:5, “our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.”

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