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1. Paul preached to the Corinthians all that had done him any good, and all he knew that would do them good: that was, the crucified Jesus Christ.

2. At the first this seems a narrow basis on which to erect a private character and a public life. But Paul deliberately adopted it. In his case it succeeded, and he believed it must succeed in every case. To a Greek, occupied with his philosophies, to a Roman, taken up with his politics, this must have seemed absurd. Even now superficial scientists and engrossed materialists regard the whole system of Christianity as a narrow theory, standing in contrast with "the liberal arts."

3. Does the history of the mental development and practical life of Paul, or any other Christian, confirm that view? Let us remind ourselves of certain things taught by the history of mind. Men have attempted to liberalise themselves by dipping into all the arts and sciences, and have thereby become most pleasant society men, and have made some figure while they lasted. But how long did they last? Compare them with the men who have each taken some great field of intellectual labour and devoted their lives to it, and how small they seem. Compare, e.g., the Admirable Crichton with Copernicus! What has Crichton done for the world? His life perished like a splendid rainbow, while that of the one-ideaed Copernicus fell on all fields like fructifying showers. Then Paul may have been right in selecting one single topic for study and preaching. And he was; for the knowledge of "Christ crucified—

I. RAISED PAUL TO BE AT THE HEAD OF ALL THE PHILOSOPHERS. The study of Jesus led Paul — and will lead us — into the perception that the material is only an expression of the ideal, that there is a soul to the universe. It is in seeking to explain the existence of such a being as Jesus of Nazareth, and such a life as His, that we come to the underlying basis of the spiritual world. Matter could not do it at all. Now it is so that all questions of bodily and mental health and disease, of the moral forces of the universe, of the social questions of human life, of development and progress, are concerned with Jesus more than with any other one person or subject known to men. For what was all this universe of worlds and men created? "For Him," said Paul, speaking of Jesus. We have not yet found the centre of the physical universe; but we have demonstrated that there is a centre to every system, and that, there is one last, supreme, unmovable point, around which all worlds revolve. The man who shall determine that exact spot shall wear the grandest starry crown among the princes in the Court of Astronomy. But to know Christ, in all He was and did, would be to know the whole material universe. Science has no other basis so broad, philosophy has no other element so simplifying and unifying all the works of God. "The heavens declare the glory of God," but that glory "shines in the face of Jesus." For all that work which found its consummation on the Cross of Christ all the other works of God were wrought. Believing this, Paul became the philosopher who lifted a light which is now the central splendour of all human intellectual efforts and results.

II. ENLARGED PAUL INTO A BROAD, INTELLIGENT HUMANITARIAN. Recollect the age in which he lived, and the nation from whom he sprung. It was not an age of humanity; indeed our race had no right views of the value of humanity till Christ came. Now there is no view of humanity which so makes every man precious to every other man, as the doctrine that the God became flesh, and that love found its greatest expression in a sacrifice, in which every man had an interest, and which should bring good to every man. It takes in all there is of God and all there is of man. It is to the heart of man what the doctrine of universal gravitation is to his intellect. All the atoms of the whole material world rush toward one another, because they rush towards the centre. All the individual hearts of our whole humanity rush toward one another, just as all feel the attraction of the loving crucified One. Paul was lifted to his broad love for man, by refusing to know among his brethren anything except their relation to Him who had loved them and given Himself for them, the just for the unjust, to bring them to God. The more he knew of that love the more humanitarian he became, until the distinction between Jew and Gentile, &c., lost itself in the great fact that man was the object of the love of the Heavenly Father, as taught by the dying Redeemer.

III. MADE PAUL A MOST PRACTICAL BUSINESS MAN. A good practical business man is one who in the beginning sets before himself distinctly an end worth the devotion of his life; who uses the methods reasonably adapted to the gaining of that end; who pushes his work by sustained efforts to its legitimate conclusion, and who promotes the general weal in gaining his own ends. Now such a man was Paul, and he learned to become such at the Cross of Christ. Full of business, never idle, never hurried, "the care of all the Churches" on him, study and trouble and work always pressing, he succeeded in organising Christian societies whose influence will go on for ever. So those men who make a business of their religion and a religion of their business, these men, by the knowledge of the crucified Jesus, become the greatest, the best, the most practical business men. This text is as good a motto for the merchants as for the preachers.

IV. MADE PAUL A TENDER, HAPPY MAN, LOVING AND BELOVED IN HIS GENERATION. Paul does not seem to have been an amiable man naturally. But from being the hard, ambitious student of Gamaliel and instrument of the Sanhedrin, how tender he became! The Cross had softened him and his love begat love. Read the salutations in his letters. See what friends he made. Conclusion: Now, consider this case. Here was a man born in a province, taught in a sectarian school, reared under every political and ecclesiastical influence calculated to cramp and embitter him, driven from his own people at last, and killed by their conquerors after years of persecution. This man became a profound philosopher, a wide and consistent philanthropist, a man of great practical business capabilities, and a tender, noble gentleman, through Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. No other culture ever made such results. Will you now dare tell me that Christianity is not liberal, that Christians are narrow, that the religion we preach to you is in the way of human progress or individual advancement?

(C. F. Deems, D. D.)

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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.