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Paul was a very determined man, and whatever he undertook he carried out with all his heart. "This one thing I do" was always his motto. He had once been a great opposer of Christ; it was not therefore to be wondered at that he should now bring all his faculties to bear upon the preaching of Christ crucified.

I. WHAT WAS THIS SUBJECT TO WHICH PAUL DETERMINED TO SHUT HIMSELF UP while preaching to the Church at Corinth?

1. He first preached —

(1) His great Master's person — Jesus Christ.

(a)  He held Him up as a real man, no phantom, but one who was crucified, &c.

(b)  He had no hesitation about His Godhead. He preached Jesus as the wisdom and power of God.

(2) His work, especially His death. "Horrible!" said the Jew; "Folly!" said the Greek. But Paul did not, therefore, put these things into the background and begin with the life of Christ and the excellency of His example, and thus tempt them onward to His divinity and atonement.

2. Very impolitic this must have seemed.

(1) Wise men would have remarked upon the hopefulness of the Israelites, if handled with discretion, and their advice would have been, "We do not say, renounce your sentiments, Paul, but disguise them for a little while." The apostle yielded to no such policy, he would not win either Jew or Gentile by keeping back the truth, for he knew that such converts are worthless.

(2) Another would say, "But if you do this you will arouse opposition. Do not provoke the contempt of all thinking men. Argue with them, and show them that you too are a philosopher. Be all things to all men. By these means you will make many friends, and by degrees bring them to accept the gospel." But the apostle puts down his foot with, "I have determined."

3. He resolved that his subject should so engross attention that he would not even speak it with excellency of speech or man's wisdom. He would hide the Cross neither with flowers of rhetoric nor with clouds of philosophy. Some preach Christ as the painter who, in depicting a sea fight, showed nothing but smoke.

II. ALTHOUGH PAUL THUS CONCENTRATED HIS ENERGIES UPON ONE POINT, IT WAS QUITE SUFFICIENT FOR HIS PURPOSE. If the apostle had aimed at pleasing an intelligent audience, or had designed to set himself up as a profound teacher, he would naturally have looked out for something a little more new and dazzling. A select Church of culture would have assured him that such preaching would only attract the servants and the old women; but Paul would not have been disconcerted by such observations, for he loved the souls of the poorest and feeblest: and, besides, he knew that what had exercised power over his own educated mind was likely to have power over other intelligent people.

1. Paul desired to arouse sinners to a sense of sin, and what has ever accomplished this so perfectly as the doctrine that sin was laid upon Christ and caused His death?

2. But he wanted also to awaken the hope that forgiveness might be given consistently with justice. Need a sinner ever doubt when he has once seen Jesus crucified?

3. He longed to lead men to actual faith in Christ. Now, faith cometh by hearing, bus the hearing must be upon the subject concerning which the faith is to deal.

4. He wanted men to forsake their sins, and what should lead them to hate evil so much as seeing the sufferings of Jesus on account of it?

5. He longed to train up a Church of consecrated men, zealous for good works; and what more is necessary to promote sanctification than Christ, who hath redeemed us and so made us for ever His servants? I say that Paul had in Christ crucified a subject equal to his object; a subject that would meet the case of every man; a subject for to-day, to-morrow, and for ever.

III. THE APOSTLE'S CONFINING HIMSELF TO THIS SUBJECT COULD NOT POSSIBLY DO HARM. A man of one thought only is generally described as riding a hobby: well this was Paul's hobby, but it was a sort of hobby which a man may ride without any injury to himself or his neighbour.

1. But Christ crucified is the only subject of which this can be said.

(1) A class of ministers preach doctrine only, the effect of which is generally to breed narrowness, exclusiveness, and bigotry.

(2) Others preach experience only.

(a) Some of them take the lower scale of experience, and say that nobody can be a child of God except he groans daily, being burdened. This teaching brings up a race of men who show their humility by sitting in judgment upon all who cannot groan as deeply as themselves.

(b) Another class preach experience always upon the high key. For them there are no nights; they sing through perpetual summer days. They have conquered sin, and they have ignored themselves. So they say, or we might have fancied that they had a very vivid idea of themselves and their attainments. Certainly their conventions and preachings largely consist of very wonderful declarations of their own admirable condition.

(3) Another class preach the precepts and little else, and the teaching becomes very legal; and after a while the true gospel which has the power to make us keep the precept gets flung into the background, and the precept is not kept after all. Do, do, do, generally ends in nothing being done.

(4) Others make the second advent the end-all and be-all of their ministry, and in many cases sheer fanaticism has been the result.

2. But keeping to this doctrine cannot do hurt, because —

(1) It contains all that is vital within itself. Within its limit, you have all the essentials for this life and for the life to come; you have the root out of which may grow branch, flower, and fruit of holy thought, word, and deed. This is a subject which does not arouse one part of the man and send the other part to sleep; it does not kindle his imagination and leave his judgment uninstructed, nor feed his intellect and starve his heart. As in milk there are all the ingredients necessary for sustaining life, so in Christ crucified there is everything that is wanted to nurture the soul.

(2) It will never produce animosities, as those nice points do which some are so fond of dealing with. "I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I am of Christ," comes from not keeping to Jesus crucified; but was there ever yet a sect created by the preaching of Christ crucified?

IV. BECAUSE OF ALL THIS WE SHOULD ALL OF US MAKE THIS THE MAIN SUBJECT OF OUR THOUGHTS, PREACHING, AND EFFORTS.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

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KJV: For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

WEB: For I determined not to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.