A stumbling block and foolishness.

1Co 1:23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
The first century church was used in some incredible ways by God, on one occasion God used street preachers to save over three thousand people on one day, other times He used miracles and signs and wonders Men of God preached the truth regardless of their surrounding conditions and God used them for the conversion of souls and the glorifying of Himself. However Paul knew that God uses means and tools to bring about His will, and he knew that there was a great difference between the Jews and the Greeks. When Paul preached to his own people, the Jews, he was preaching to a group of people that understood the creation of the world, the fall of man, the universality of sin, the truths of God's interaction with men, and the inerrancy of the scriptures. So then when he preached Christ, and Him crucified to the Jews, they understood everything he was saying; the problem was they did not want to believe it because that would mess up their idea of getting to heaven through good works and personal sacrifices. On the other hand, when Paul preached to the Greeks he was preaching to a culture that was completely humanistic. The Greeks believed in many gods, none of them all powerful, in fact they believed that most of their gods were simply highly evolved men. So when the gospel was preached to the Greeks, it could not simply be said, "believe on Jesus, the son of God, to save you from your sins." The Greeks would throw this off as the empty babbling of unlearned men because they had no idea what the true meaning of "believe" was, they had no idea what was meant by a singular God and His son, they didn't understand what "sin" was. So Paul rightly classified the Jews as those who didn't want to believe, and the Greeks as those who could not believe.
Now what is the point of all this? How does it apply to us today? It has a great application in how we, as Christians, present the gospel. Most of us are too frightened or ashamed to ever present the gospel at all, but if and when we do, I'm afraid we go about it all wrong. We have to identify which culture we live in, not in order to pamper to it and become more like it, but so we know how to approach it with the gospel. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone in the bible belt is a christian and further more not everyone in the bible belt even understands some of the most foundational truths about the bible. This used to be a largely "Jewish" culture (meaning that the majority of people understood the fundamentals of the scriptures). There was prayer not only in school but at almost every public event, the bible was taken seriously and taught as fact, most people attended church at least sporadically if not frequently. The make up of this country has changed drastically over the past 100 years. There is now no mention of anything remotely christian allowed in any public place, evolution is taught as fact in our education system, the scripture is ridiculed and quickly disposed of by anyone with any aspirations of national acclaim and recognition. We are living today in the picture of a Greek culture. If the gospel is to be heard and accepted by our culture, we must start relaying the foundations, reteaching the authority of scripture, reinforcing the truth of man's depravity and God holiness, rebuilding the fortress of salvation through Christ alone. Otherwise, our preaching will continue to be rejected as foolishness and we will be found as unwise stewards of what God has given us, holding the truth in unrighteousness.

All for the glory of God

Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. I Cor. 10:31
The first question in the Westminster Shorter Catechism for Younger Children is "What is the chief end of man?" The answer being "Mans chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." As the custom of catechizing our children has become rarer, we have begun to lose this prime truth that ought to be the governing force in our lives. If I were to ask most professing christians today why they ate and drank, I can say with fair confidence that the majority of them would say it was in order to stay alive or healthy. I doubt as to whether there would be even one that told me their motive for eating and drinking was to bring glory to God. If I were to put this question in different words and ask how much we do each day for the express purpose of bringing God glory, I don't think the answer would be much different. The sad truth is that we do relatively little, if anything, on a regular basis with the prayer that God would use that action to glorify himself. If we begin to grasp what exactly it is that Paul is teaching here it would change the way we live our lives, it would change the way we think, our entire worldview would have to be completely reassessed.
Now to be sure, God is bringing glory to himself every day, in every way. God is conducting the entire world in the way he wants it to go, and therefore glorifying himself whether we acknowledge it or not. If we are not actively seeking to glorify God it does not rob him of glory, but it does rob of us of a blessing. When we are living our lives with the subconscious belief that the chief end of man is to pleasure himself, we are living in disobedience to scripture, we are living a life that makes our self god, by inserting ourselves where God was meant to be, that is the center of our lives. While we don't think of ourselves this way most of the time, it is in fact how most of us live out our lives. We eat to keep us alive, we work to pay our bills, we spend our free time doing what makes us feel good, we sleep so that we feel better. When we ought to be eating so that we may serve God better, pay our bills because that is what God expects, spend our free time doing what God has asked of us, and sleeping so that we are refreshed to do God's work.
For the vast majority of christians and the world alike, we spend our lives thinking, or at least acting like, we are the center of the world. With such sayings as, "You only go around once", and "It's a dog eat dog world", and "You have to look out for number one first", the truth of what is in our hearts begins to spill out. It's true you do look out for number one first, the problem is we have put the prime number on the wrong individual, we are not number one, God is number one.
I would encourage you with each passing day, to take this truth to heart in a way that changes the way you act. I have resolved to live my life in such a way as to make sure that the reason I do what I do is that it is something that glorifies God. That applies both to the "grand tasks" such as what I preach, down to the "menial ones" such as what and when, I eat and drink. Don't waste your life thinking you are the chief end of your life, do something that will transcend this life, make glorifying God your chief end.