DCLM Daily Manna 5 March 2026: Simplicity of the Gospel
Text: 1 Corinthians 1:17-25 (KJV)
For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect.
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”
20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
KEY VERSE: (1 Corinthians 1:27)
“But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.”
READ OTHER DCLM DAILY DEVOTIONAL HERE
During a Billy Sunday programme, Joey, a mentally impaired boy came faithfully each night to sing in the choir. “Joey was not very bright,” said Homer Rodeheaver, the well-known song leader for Billy Sunday, “but he never missed any of our meetings and wouldn’t leave until he shook my hand.
Sometimes I was embarrassed by the way he constantly trailed me, and I secretly wished he’d go away.”
Then one evening a man came to Rodeheaver and said, “Thank you for being kind to my son, Joey. He’s not right mentally, but never has he enjoyed anything so much as singing in the choir. He worked hard doing simple chores for people so he could contribute to the collection.
Through his pleadings, my wife and five other children came to this evangelistic campaign and have now received Christ. Last night his 75-year-old grandfather, who has been an atheist all his life, was saved, and tonight his grandmother also came forward. Now our entire family is converted!” Joey demonstrates how the foolishness of the gospel wins the lost.
Our text perfectly portrays a paradox that holds the world in awe since the first century. It is the mystery or the paradox of the cross of Christ: both repelling and compelling. The Oxford professor and philosopher Sir Alfred Ayer noted that the idea of Christ’s death on a cross for our sins is “intellectually contemptible and morally outrageous.”
Apostle Paul here zeroes in on the truth that Christianity is supernaturally based on God’s calling of sinners to Himself. We are Christians because God did work in our hearts to bring us to faith in Christ. Christianity is not intellectual but it is supernatural. As Christians, we understand that Christ is the power and the wisdom of God because we are experiencing the effects of the crucified and resurrected Saviour in our lives.
Engrained in the nucleus of the gospel is a disarming simplicity symbolised by the crucifixion, the blood and the Word, and the call of the “simple and foolish” folks to eternal life, which nothing on earth could purchase.
There is power in the blood. There is power in the message of the cross. And there is power in the name of Jesus Christ. When a preaching exalts this truth, the power in the Word is released to save and transform lives. To the Greeks, this is foolishness; to the Jews, it is a stumbling block. But to those who believe, it is both the power and the wisdom of God. God pours contempt on the wisdom of men and exalts the foolishness of the gospel to win the lost world.
You can step out like Joey, speak to the sinner lovingly, plead passionately, implore gently and watch the wisdom of God save more souls through your dogged simplicity of preaching the good news.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
The gospel message, as simple as it is, remains the most potent message for the transformation of people.
THE BIBLE IN ONE YEAR:
Jeremiah 1-3
DCLM Daily Manna 5 March 2026
