The description of this text from LCA worship resources ‘nailed it’.  Hence, here it is:1 CORINTHIANS 1:18-25: We still run up against the same difficulty as St Paul did with the gospel if we proclaim it faithfully. The world sees it as weak and foolish. The sophisticated ‘wise’ of our time also expect to reach and find God only if he can be defined and explained by human intellectual power. Paul shows us that salvation comes only by the power of God through the word he chooses to use to change people and save them. The crucifixion calls for humble sorrow over sin, but because it is the ‘wisdom of God’ is the only effective means of lifting people above their own intellectual limits unto an eternal relationship with the Father. (From LCA worship resources http://www.lca.org.au/worship/cowadmin/?p=9425 .)