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For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

1 Corinthians 2:2

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Never were those arms opened so wide as they were on the Roman cross. One arm extending back into history and the other reaching into the future.

Max Lucado

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It is true that the sheer unadorned story of the life of Jesus has in it a unique power to move the hearts of men. Dr. James Stewart quotes an example. The Christian missionaries had come to the court of Clovis, the king of the Franks. They told the story of the Cross, and, as they did, the hand of the old king stole to his sword hilt. "If I and my Franks had been there," he said, "we would have stormed Calvary and rescued him from his enemies." When we deal with ordinary, untechnical people, a vivid, factual picture has a power that a close knit argument lacks. For most people, the way to the recesses of a man's inmost being lies, not through his mind, but through his heart.

~ Willian Barclay

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Lazy preachers have no right to appeal to 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 to justify indolence in the study and careless delivery in the pulpit. These verses do not prohibit diligent preparation, passion, clear articulation, and persuasive presentation. Rather, they warn against any method that leads people to say, “What a marvelous preacher!” rather than, “What a marvelous Savior!”

D.A. Carson

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". . . 1 Corinthians is more than a practical letter aimed at telling the readers what to do and what not to do. The letter in fact primarily seeks to influence the minds, dispositions, intuitions of the audience in line with the message Paul had initially preached in the community (1 Corinthians 2:2), to confront readers with the critical nature of God’s saving action in the crucified Christ in such a fashion that it becomes the glasses to refocus their vision of God, their own community, and the future. The advancing of such an epistemology gives the letter a theological purpose that unifies its otherwise unconnected structure."

~ Charles B. Cousar, "The Theological Task of 1 Corinthians," in Pauline Theology. Vol. II: 1 & 2 Corinthians, p. 102.

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Otherwise. . . pure gnosticism

Paul offered the example of his preaching among the Corinthians as a further illustration of what the wisdom of God can do in contrast to what the words that humans regard as wisdom can do.

"The matters of literary context and the continuity of the argument are all important in understanding 1 Corinthians 2. Otherwise, much of the chapter reads like pure gnosticism, and Paul is made the advocate of a private religion reserved for the spiritual elite (1 Corinthians 2:6-16)." [Note: Charles B. Cousar, "Expository Articles: 1 Corinthians 2:1-13," Interpretation 44:2 (April 1990):169.]

Thomas Constable

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1 Corinthians 2 | NLT

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Paul was determined not to sugar-coat the truth concerning the crucified Christ by eliminating the teaching about Him--he was determined to preach "Jesus Christ, and him crucified" no more and no less.

Charles Bailly