by Frank Turk
You may be wondering about this blog if you have accidentally found us; if you've been waiting for this blog and you're finally seeing the first post, thanks for your patience.
So what exactly is a "stumbling blog"? Well, as we open the doors, it is a somewhat function-free template that barely allows us to post entries, but does feed headlines from some of the best and brightest in the Christ-blogging blogosphere.
Yes: Christ-blogging. It's an interesting thing, this blogosphere. The last time it was available at TTLB, there were over 4200 blogs which were listed in the "Blogdom of God", and they ranged from Hugh Hewitt to Slice of Laodicea to a couple of sites with content that was actually literary porn. You know: no offense. It's hard to manage an aggregator of over 4000 blogs, and if someone gives you the content head-fake, in the best case you have to hope that someone else will e-mail you and you can check out the problem and fix it.
But the difference between God-blogging (which, in the best case, is to say, "bloggers who make some affirmative statement about God) and
Christ-blogging can be found right here,
in a manuscript which is older than the Gospel of Judas:Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
A fellow named Paul wrote that to his friends in Corinth, trying to explain to them that it is not exactly a privilege and a high station to be someone who knows Jesus Christ and is therefore tasked with delivering the message of the cross.
Paul wasn't invited to the palace when he came to the major cities of the ancient world: he was usually dragged in there in chains for being a trouble-maker. And when he spoke to the rulers of those cities, he wasn't speaking to them after dinner as a key-note speaker: he was speaking to them as someone who was pleading innocent to a crime.
But Paul was not stirring up trouble like an illegal immigrant who has the audacity to demand that his lawlessness be made a virtue: Paul was preaching and teaching something which seemed far more ridiculous and nonsensical. In that, in establishing StumblingBlog.org, our first premise is this: we're not going to publish or count stats, because we aren't doing this to be popular. We expect to be called fools for writing what we write, and we expect to be rejected for saying the things we have to say. We are not interested in popularity.
The second premise is this: we are actually interested in people. When Paul here says, "the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men," he is actually saying two things at once. The first is that God's wisdom is greater than the thinking which calls His wisdom foolish. The second is that God's wisdom is greater than the folly of those of us who believe him, and in that He is going to call out men who are foolish and stubborn in spite of their shortcomings. So as we present Christ and Him Crucified to you who are reading, we are presenting you with something which is great not in the account of our presentation, but great in that Jesus Christ saves in spite of flawed messengers like us. And it is so great, that it saves in spite of any enmity in those it saves.
The final premise is this: God is not an abstraction. God is not a theory. God is not a philosophical tool. God is active and working in this world, and He is doing those things expressly and exclusively through the cross of Jesus Christ. If you are seeking God but you are rejecting Jesus Christ, then you are rejecting God's work in this world, and you are rejecting God.
This is the week before Easter, and this week all kinds of Christians are remembering the suffering and death of Jesus on a cross at the hands of sinful men – and many people are right now looking at this portrait thinking that God lost at the cross, and proved he has no control over this world, because men had the power to kill Jesus. You may be thinking that God was made the fool at the cross.
Let me suggest something to you today as you read this first entry on StumblingBlog.org: Paul says that God has used what men will call foolishness as the strongest and wisest demonstration in history. When Paul calls the message of the cross a "stumbling block" to those who are seeking a sign, he is talking about anyone who looks at the cross and thinks it doesn't make any sense.
A "stumbling blog" is a place where Christ is blogged, and the message of his cross is made plain to all readers. We are not trying to uncover or expose anything but Jesus Christ, and him crucified. It is our prayer that as we blog for the sake of Christ here, the wisdom of the cross and its power are made real to you.
Welcome to StumblingBlog.org.
