Verse 23
A crucified Messiah was a stumbling block to the Jews because they regarded Messiah as the Person on whom God’s blessing rested to the greatest degree (Isaiah 11:2). However, Jesus’ executioners hung Him on a tree, the sure proof that God had cursed Him (Deuteronomy 21:23; Galatians 3:13).
Paul used the terms "Greeks" (1 Corinthians 1:22) and "Gentiles" (1 Corinthians 1:23) interchangeably.
"It is hard for those in the christianized West, where the cross for almost nineteen centuries has been the primary symbol of the faith, to appreciate how utterly mad the message of a God who got himself crucified by his enemies must have seemed to the first-century Greek or Roman. But it is precisely the depth of this scandal and folly that we must appreciate if we are to understand both why the Corinthians were moving away from it toward wisdom and why it was well over a century before the cross appears among Christians as a symbol of their faith." [Note: Ibid., p. 76.]
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