After the Apostle Paul went to the city of Athens and reasoned with “The Philosophers at Athens”, it did not accomplish anything. He was not able to start a church there. He only had a few people who followed him. (Acts 17: 34).
You see Paul was a great intellectual, he had a brilliant mind. But you cannot talk a person into believing, you cannot reason a person into Christ. You have to speak a living word that is filled with the Spirit of God, that will have an impact on them. They will either receive the Lord or start a riot in Paul’s day.
So, he determined he would never make that mistake again. He determined to know nothing, except Christ and Him crucified. Then He went to the city of Corinth and started a church there.
The Apostle Paul preached Christ and Him crucified.
1 Corinthians 2: 2 For I determined NOT TO KNOW ANYTHING among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Now on the surface this does not seem to be a lot of subject material. But under the surface there are depths of hidden mysteries we have yet to experience.
Reading the context of this scripture we find a couple previous verses that explain what it means to preach Christ and Him crucified.
1 Corinthians 1: 30 But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption—31 that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.”
Before we were a human being God put us in Christ. When Jesus died, the whole human race died with Him. Jesus died as the last Adam (the last of the human race) and was raised from the dead as the second man. When he was raised from the dead and seated with the Father, we became a new creation and were seated with him in heavenly places.
Jesus now becomes our provision; He become our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Jesus becomes our inheritance, everything he is and has now becomes ours. All we have to do is appropriate (take possession) it, and then walk in it, so that we become like Him in this life.
The focus of our preaching now becomes how to appropriate the nature of God and how to impart it to others. How to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.
I think the preaching in our churches is totally off course. They have not DETERMINED to know anything except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Therefore those who listen to them are not hearing the MESSAGE, so they will not fulfill their primary destiny to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ in this life, and will be saved so as by fire-1 Corinthians 3:15