Scandalous and Moronic

Saturday, 29th November 2008

Today, we are going to learn 2 Greek words: skandalon and moros.

If you find these words somewhat familiar, it is because the English words "scandal" and "moron" are derived from them.

The Oxford dictionary defines "scandal" and "moron" as follows:

scandal (noun)
1 an action or event regarded as morally or legally wrong and causing general public outrage.
2 outrage, rumour, or gossip arising from this.
— ORIGIN Latin scandalum ‘cause of offence’, from Greek skandalon ‘snare, stumbling block’.

moron (noun)
informal a stupid person.
— DERIVATIVES moronic (adjective).
— ORIGIN from Greek moros ‘foolish’.

Words that should not be in a "decent and proper" Christian's vocabulary, don't you think?

What if I were to tell you that these words are found in the Bible?

What if I were to further tell you that these words were used by the apostle Paul when he spoke about the finished work of Jesus on the cross?

In 1 Cor 1:23, Paul tells the Corinthian church,
but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles

The words "stumbling block" and "foolishness" in the original Greek were the words "skandalon" and "moria" (which is the feminine noun for moros).

The cross was both scandalous and moronic.

To the Jew, the cross was considered scandalous because it represented a once and for all sacrifice for all time. The heritage, tradition that their forefathers had passed down from the time of Moses (and hence what made sense to them) was that there should a continuous offering of the blood of bulls and goats to atone for their sin. The concept of a "finished work" was a stumbling block because it went against their core values.

To the Greek, the cross was considered moronic because it represented a divine exchange where man's sin was imputed to the sinless, and the sinless' right standing before God was imputed to the sinner. The Greeks prided themselves with being thinkers and philosophers. In their mythology, it was crazy to imagine one of their gods condescend to become a mere mortal and then to die for fellow mortals so as to appease the wrath of a higher god.

Before we who call ourselves Christians start chuckling and patting ourselves on the back for not being like the Jew or Greek in rejecting the gospel (after all, we don't consider the cross to be scandalous or moronic), maybe we should take a step back and ask ourselves whether we still do, to some extent...

Take myself for an example. Although I've been a Christian for 30 years, as recent as 3 years ago, there was a part of me who thought like the Jew and the Greek as described by Paul.

Like the Jew, I did not embrace that Jesus' work on the cross was a perfect and completed one. So while I believed that I was going to heaven, I did not live the abundant life here on earth because it did not occur to me that Jesus died for all my sin, past present and future. Whenever something bad happened, I would have a sense of condemnation because there was a sin that was not confessed and remained unforgiven.

Like the Greek, I did not embrace that Jesus' work on the cross was a divine exchange. So while I knew that Jesus took my sin, I was not aware that I took on His righteousness. I was not aware that I could claim for myself prosperity, health, piece of mind, restfulness and acceptance with Daddy God because Jesus took upon Himself poverty, sickness, anguish, toil and separation from His Father when part of His passion was to be stripped naked, whipped, agonising about the cup, having the crown of thorns pressed into His head and being abandoned on the cross respectively.
Thank you Lord for your progressive revelation!

P.S.
Ps Peter Youngren of Celebration Ministries preached a sermon on 1 Cor 1:23 entitled "The Cross: Scandalous Grace", which is available at the Rock Gifts and Book Store.

P.P.S.
Those who accuse me of idolising Joseph Prince, please note that I haven been "promoting" Peter Youngren and Steve McVey as well. I don't idolise any of them. Rather, I idolise the One that they preach so strongly and unashamedly about -- Jesus the Christ.