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When I was a teenager, I participated in speech competitions hosted by the Lion’s Club. One year—it must’ve been around the same time as Nancy Reagan’s famous “Just Say No!” campaign—our topic was why students shouldn’t take drugs. I researched the topic and prepared my speech.

On the night of the competition, I spoke first. Usually, you don’t want to speak first because you’re still nervous, the mic stand needs adjusting, the audio feeds back—all things that can throw a speaker off his game. I was not a usual competitor, however. I loved to go first because I was so good at public speaking that I’d make anyone who followed me nervous.

Sure enough, I delivered my speech flawlessly. The girl who followed me flubbed her opening lines and had to restart. The person who followed her was so forgettable that I can’t even remember whether he was a he or she was a she. I had first place in the bag.

I lost. To the girl. Who. Flubbed. Her. Speech.

I was incredulous. Even one of the judges later told my parents that, on forensic merit alone, I should’ve won the competition. But there’s more to life than eloquence. I told the judges why students shouldn’t take drugs. The girl who followed me told the judges about overcoming her own problems with drugs and addiction. I had words. She had words backed by power.

In 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, the Corinthians are me, and Paul is the girl:

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.  For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.

Remember the broader context of these words: The Corinthians loved wisdom and rhetorical excellence. They evaluated Christian leaders on the basis of wisdom and words, then divided because they rated different leaders differently. In order to unify the Corinthians, Paul attacked their mistaken concepts of both wisdom and rhetorical excellence. He reminded them of the foolishness of the gospel’s message (1:18-25). He reminded them of the foolishness of the gospel’s audience, that is, the Corinthians themselves (1:26-31). And he reminded them of the foolishness of the gospel’s messenger, that is, Paul himself (2:1-5). If—from a worldly point of view—the message, audience, and messenger were unimpressive, the Corinthians had no reason to boast and even less to divide.

Back to me and the girl: Which is more important? Speaking well or being changed? The latter, obviously. My speech that night was flawlessly delivered. Her speech was a flawed life transformed. As Christians, let us always prefer changed lives to nice speeches.