Logic - 1 Corinthians 2:1-5

We’ve just considered the type of people that the Lord calls to participate in the work of his gospel and have determined that for the most part, we are just regular folks doing our best. It seems that Paul is self-deprecating when he tells his audience that when he was there preaching previously that he “came not with excellency of speech or wisdom… and I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.” This is contrary to what we know about Paul though, because as the IM reminds us “Paul was exceptionally intelligent and well educated. He could have impressed the Corinthians with rhetoric, philosophy, and secular learning.”

Even though God uses “weak things” to spread his gospel, that doesn’t mean that we are weak willed or weak in mind or anything derogatory like that. Paul was called to preach the gospel and we know that he was very educated in the scriptures and trusted by other Pharisees to carry out important assignments. So it wasn’t the fact that Paul couldn’t have used logic and intellect to reason out the gospel, “but he deliberately focused on teaching the message of Jesus Christ simply and humbly.”
This is something that I personally struggle with because the gospel is the only thing that makes sense to me as far as things of eternal nature, so when I talk to people about the gospel, I often lean heavily on aspects of it that make sense. It’s like that quote that goes something like “if you only focus on the logical half of the gospel, then you miss out on the most powerful portion that can only come to you by the Spirit.” That was a big wake up call for me when I read that because I realized that I could not lean on my own understanding in order to gain a solid testimony, I had to turn to the Spirit or else I would miss out on a whole portion.
Interestingly, as I tried to focus more on what the Spirit was trying to teach me, my understanding of the gospel from a intellectual stand point exploded. If I thought that the plan of salvation was the only thing that made sense BEFORE relying on the Spirit, I am thoroughly convinced now; it’s been an incredible experience and continues to be so. The other side of that coin too, is that when you try to reason someone into the gospel, then they also won’t get to interact with the Spirit for confirmation of truth or spiritual insights.
It’s not a matter of ignoring the logical parts of the gospel, or not using eloquent speech to convey the message, the point is to stay in tune with the Spirit so you can say what the audience needs to hear. Because if someone is a great speaker, like Sidney Rigdon was, sometimes it can become a bit of a sales pitch and that puts people off. Even if people are receptive, they build their testimonies on what is said instead of what is felt. Sidney Rigdon was a great preacher, but his sermons didn’t bring on more converts than many other regular guys who were sent on missions and ended up baptizing hundreds of people.
In the early church there were times when a single regular farmer would go on a mission and then end up baptizing dozens of people, converting whole congregations, and even the time one sheriff sent out like three guys to arrest the missionary and all three became convinced of the message, and so they said, “don’t sent out anyone else or they will be converted too!” These things didn’t happen because the speaker was dynamic or the reasoning was too convincing. These events happened because the Spirit was present and because the speaker invited the Spirit into the meeting by being humble enough to not spout off his own speech.
The IM quotes Brigham Young as teaching, “If all the talent, tact, wisdom, and refinement of the world had been combined in one individual, and that person had been sent to me with the Book of Mormon, and had declared in the most exalted of earthly eloquence, the truth of it, undertaking to prove it by his learning and worldly wisdom, it would have been to me like the smoke which arises only to vanish.”
Let’s think about people who use eloquent and persuasive language, salesmen, that’s pretty much all I can think of, always salesmen. And salesmen are trying to get you to do something, not always money related, but join their club or buy something or back their political candidate. Salesmen are trying to convince you of something because it benefits in some way. Even missionaries or people who are trying to be “every member a missionary,” we don’t get extra heaven points for converting someone, but really if we think about it, when someone accepts the gospel we receive validation of our own choice to be a member.
The problem with this is, of course, that we don’t convert anyone, only the Spirit does so when we get our own personal feelings mixed up in the conversion process, it becomes warped for us and sometimes the people we are trying to convert. We have to be really careful in our intentions for sharing the gospel because there are a lot of subconscious motivations that can go into it, such as validations for our own choices, feelings of power in persuasion, etc. We have to take the gospel to people because we know that it brings value to our lives and we want to share that value with others, but only if they want to accept it.
I had a thought yesterday when we were talking about what some of the benefits would be to using kings and rulers to preach the gospel to their people and sort of mandate conversion and really, if the whole goal of the gospel was to get as many people baptized as fast as possible, regardless of whether or not they felt committed or truly converted, then that might not be a bad strategy. But we really have to look at the whole purpose of the gospel and of missionary work to understand Christ’s motivation for it.
We can easily look at who Jesus picks as his preachers and his attitude towards those who lived without the gospel being available for acceptance, and see that God is more concerned with everyone having a deep, lasting, change of heart and a personal relationship with him, than he is of checking off the ordinance boxes. The plan of salvation provides ample time and circumstances for God’s children to learn about, understand, and accept the gospel, to include not only this life in some cases but certainly in the next. He definitely values quality of conversion over quantity of conversion. And if that is Jesus’ desire for his people, then we need to learn how to accept that as our desire too.
The Brigham Young quote continues, “But when I saw a man without eloquence, or talents for public speaking, who could only just say, ‘I know by the power of the Holy Ghost that the Book of Mormon is true, that Joseph Smith is a Prophet of the Lord,’ the Holy Ghost proceeding from that individual illuminates my understanding, and light, glory, and immortality is before me; I am encircled by it, filled with it, and know for myself that the testimony of the man is true.”
The man who preached the gospel to Brigham Young seems to have been able to take himself out of the equation. This seems kind of counter intuitive to say because he, not the salesman, said, “I know…” but by taking his desire to receive some sort of gain or reputation for greatness out of the mix, he didn’t need big flowery words or ultra convincing arguments.
And we have to remember that salvation is a personal matter, meaning that our relationship with Jesus Christ is just that… personal. When someone speaks of their own personal beliefs then we can understand that we too can find out for ourselves. Thinking about a sales pitch, one of the most convincing statements is “I use this product myself,” but even then you have to think “is this person lying, do they really use it themselves?” When the one issue in question is one’s personal belief, then it’s easier to take them at face value and find out for yourself.
So it’s not that Paul couldn’t make convincing, elaborate arguments for the gospel, it’s just that he didn’t. Because ultimately, testimonies are built on logic, they are built on personal conversion from the Spirit. There are a lot of things that I logically know I should do, but I just don’t want to do them or I have an emotional hang up about them. Logic and reasoning are almost never enough to convince someone to do something, you have to encourage an emotional commitment.