Ancient Grafitti

Date: Friday, October 2, 2026

If Romans is the constitution of the church, 1 Corinthians is the operating model. Check out this overview of 1 Corinthians from the Bible Project as we jump into Paul's second longest letter describing what life in the church should look like.

Readings: 1 Corinthians 1 | Psalm 78:1-37

Scratched into a plaster wall near the Palatine Hill in Rome, probably around the year 200, is one of the oldest pictures of the crucifixion we know of. And it’s a joke. A man stands beside a crucified figure with the head of a donkey, and the caption reads, in rough Greek, “Alexamenos worships his god.” Some Roman teenager wanted to humiliate a Christian classmate. It’s the ancient version of a cruel meme or modern grafitti.

Paul would not have been surprised. He writes to Corinth, a city that prized eloquence, status, and polish, and says plainly: “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). Crucifixion was the most shameful death the empire could devise. Worshiping a crucified Jewish carpenter as Lord? Absurd. Yet Paul insists that “the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom” (1 Corinthians 1:25).

Here’s the good news tucked inside the offense: God did not wait for us to become impressive. “Not many of you were wise by human standards,” Paul reminds the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 1:26), and that is precisely the point. Christ himself “has become wisdom for us, from God; that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). You don’t climb to God on a ladder of credentials. He came down, all the way down, to meet you. Alexamenos, by the way, apparently kept worshiping. Belonging to Christ was worth the mockery.

Devotional Prompts:

• Where do you feel pressure to make the Gospel sound more impressive or less “foolish” than it is?
• What does it mean to you that God chose the weak and unlikely to display his wisdom?
• How does knowing that Christ is your righteousness change the way you handle feelings of not measuring up?

Prayer: Crucified and risen Lord, we confess that Your cross confounds our pride and heals our hearts. Give us courage to stand beside You when the world scoffs, and humility to rest in a wisdom we did not earn. Be our righteousness, holiness, and redemption today. Amen.