Playing the Fool for No Foolish Reason

You might think that laying bare the hard truth about his opponents as being nothing less than false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ, would have been more than enough to get the attention and concern of the Corinthian believers. But Paul knew better. He knew that the power, subtlety and attractiveness of their message, wrapped effectively as it was in Christian dress, wouldn’t be easily recognized, let alone eagerly rejected. And so he resorted to the skilled and pointed use of irony, in a passage that will come to be known through the Christian ages as his “Fool’s Speech”. He introduces that speech in verses 11:16-21, in a message entitled, “Playing the Fool for No Foolish Reason”. It is a revealing look at the times in which we live and the difficult challenge we face in speaking to those times.