Christ Is God's Power and Wisdom

¹⁸ The message about the cross doesn't make any sense to lost people. But for those of us who are being saved, it is God's power at work. ^19 (A) As God says in the Scriptures,

^20 (B) What happened to those wise people? What happened to those experts in the Scriptures? What happened to the ones who think they have all the answers? Didn't God show that the wisdom of this world is foolish? ^21 (C) God was wise and decided not to let the people of this world use their wisdom to learn about him.

Instead, God chose to save only those who believe the foolish message we preach. ²² Jews ask for miracles, and Greeks want something that sounds wise. ²³ But we preach that Christ was nailed to a cross. Most Jews have problems with this, and most Gentiles think it is foolish. ²⁴ Our message is God's power and wisdom for the Jews and the Greeks that he has chosen. ²⁵ Even when God is foolish, he is wiser than everyone else, and even when God is weak, he is stronger than everyone else.

Jesus in the Temple

(Matthew 21.12,13; Mark 11.15-17; Luke 19.45,46)

^13 (A) Not long before the Jewish festival of Passover, Jesus went to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ There he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves in the temple. He also saw moneychangers sitting at their tables. ¹⁵ So he took some rope and made a whip. Then he chased everyone out of the temple, together with their sheep and cattle. He turned over the tables of the moneychangers and scattered their coins.

¹⁶ Jesus said to the people who had been selling doves, “Get those doves out of here! Don't make my Father's house a marketplace.”

^17 (B) The disciples then remembered that the Scriptures say, “My love for your house burns in me like a fire.”

¹⁸ The Jewish leaders asked Jesus, “What miracle^[a] will you work to show us why you have done this?”

^19 (C) “Destroy this temple,” Jesus answered, “and in three days I will build it again!”

²⁰ The leaders replied, “It took 46 years to build this temple. What makes you think you can rebuild it in three days?”

²¹ But Jesus was talking about his body as a temple. ²² And when he was raised from death, his disciples remembered what he had told them. Then they believed the Scriptures and the words of Jesus.