CT077 - The Cross is Our Only Boast

A Lord's Supper meditation on Galatians 6:14 — the boldest boast Paul ever made. In a letter fighting over teachers who wanted something to show off in the flesh, Paul takes the whole pile of things he could brag about and sets it down at the foot of a cross. And a cross, in his world, was no ornament; it was the most degrading death Rome could hand out, a thing you didn't say in polite company. Matthew Allen walks the verse line by line: the one boast Paul will make is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, because the cross is where the debt he could never pay was paid in blood, by Another, for him. That kind of boast doesn't puff you up — it empties you out, giving God all the credit and leaving us none. Then Paul goes a step further: the world has been crucified to him, and he to the world. Two deaths in one sentence. The status, the approval, the security the world holds out have lost their pull, and Paul has nothing left that the world wants.

After a week in Matthew 6 on treasures, fasting, and daily bread, the table is where every other boast gets laid down. As the bread and cup come around this Sunday, we bring nothing to glory in, but Christ crucified for us — the one boast that holds up when everything else gives way.