Christ Crucified, the Sufficient Message

The following was written by G. Patterson and was published in The Evangelisation of the World:

"The great means which the apostle [Paul] employed was the preaching of Christ crucified.  We have some of his discourses, and we have declarations as to the matter and manner of his preaching,  but all show that his great theme was salvation through the sufferings unto death of the Son of God, 'We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God' (1 Cor. 22-24). 

"If he ever tried a discussion of a different kind, as it was when, contending with the philosophers of Athens, he delivered his magnificent discourse on Mars' Hill, in which he treats of some of the high themes which have engaged the thoughts of men; but nowhere that we read of did his labours prove of so little avail. 

"And it does seem significant that immediately after, when coming to Corinth, depressed in spirit, he determined to know nothing among her licentious crowds, or before her philosophers and rhetoricians, but Christ, and Him crucified, the result was the gathering of much people to the Lord. 

"So the missionary must now go to the heathen, not to civilise the savage or to discuss philosophy with the cultured, but to preach salvation to sinners through the great atonement, and the message is found, as in the apostle's day, 'the power of God and the wisdom of God.'"