1 Corinthians 1:17-31

 

There was a problem with division and sectarianism within the Corinthian church. This division largely seems to have centered around individuals—individual ministers of the gospel. After rebuking this attitude, Paul puts the issue in a large perspective. The issue here is the nature of the gospel itself. In this section, Paul lays out his proposition or big idea regarding the gospel.

Verse 17a is transitional; it connects the previous section to this one. Paul had just commented about how few people he had baptized in Corinth. Here he explains why. We have to understand that Paul is not condemning or minimizing baptism. We see how Paul felt about baptism in Romans 6:3: “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?” Here, Paul can speak of baptism as a universal experience for Christians; to be a Christian was to be baptized. Paul's low baptism count wasn't because he was against baptism; it was because he had a different mission. Barclay put it that Paul was too busy to spend time on baptism. (Probably delegated that to Silas and Timothy or Aquilla and Priscilla.) Paul's focus was not on baptism but on preaching the gospel.

Paul was called to be a preacher, but more than that, he saw this work of a preacher as being vital; in a sense, it was the most important thing. Verse 21b is the most famous verse from this passage: “It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” This is why we put such a high emphasis on preaching; why our church services are built around the sermon—because we believe that preaching is God's chosen method of converting and growing the soul. But why is this? And why does Paul refer to this as “foolishness”?

To understand that, we have to make sure we understand what preaching is. And to do that, I want to point out the things Paul contrasts with it. We already mentioned baptism. But throughout this passage, he also contrasts preaching with wisdom, specifically, the wisdom of words—in other words, philosophy and eloquence. He also contrasts it with signs; that is, miracles—supernatural manifestations of God's power. And what's interesting here is that Paul did all these things. Paul did perform some baptism and saw it as important. Paul did sometimes work miracles—Acts 13:11 tells of Paul's encounter with Elymas, who sought to stop his ministry: “And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand.” Paul did work miracles. And whatever the style of his preaching, there are passages that are certainly marked by the wisdom of words—passages both philosophical enough to be contemplated for hours and eloquent to a degree that is almost musical. The opening of Ephesians and the closing of Romans 11 are perhaps the most obvious examples.

So what is it about preaching that is so special? If these other things—baptism, miracles, eloquence, and philosophy—were all legitimate or even necessary in their respective places, why is preaching so uniquely important? So important that all of these other things needed to be (comparatively) put down in order to exalt preaching?

We actually can get the answer by looking at what Paul says about preaching elsewhere. Romans 10:14: “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” So we have this sequence laid out here: PREACHING -> HEARING -> BELIEVING. But notice how Paul repeats the sequence a few verses later: Romans10:17 “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Here we have the same sequence but PREACHING has been replaced by THE WORD OF GOD. Because that is what preaching is; it is the proclamation of God's word. In our text, Paul says preaching saves those who believe. In 2 Timothy 3:15, Paul also mentions that which saves those who believe: “And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”

That is what is important about preaching. There is nothing special about the mere fact of a man standing in front of other men to talk. People do that for many purposes and with many motives. The point of preaching is that it is a proclamation of God's word, and God's word is the only thing that can bring salvation. A preacher may speak with eloquence and learning, but if he is so focused on showing off his own skill and knowledge that the message is lost, then he is accomplishing nothing. The church must have sacraments, but they must be secondary to God's word, which alone brings people to the point of faith without which the sacraments are useless. God may give the church the ability to work miracles, but those must not distract from the word of God.

That last point is particularly interesting because there we have a case of something like this. When Paul was in Lystra, he healed a disabled man, and this (initially, at least) hurt the church because rather than coming to Christ, the people were ready to start worshipping Paul and Barnabas. The only good that came out of this (besides the personal good to the healed man) was that it gave Paul a chance to preach the gospel.

So when Paul that “it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” the point is that salvation comes through the proclamation of God's word (and a belief in it). I'm not sure the main point here is even about the method of preaching, per se. God's word can be proclaimed in many ways and settings. But in the end, God's word—specifically, the gospel of Christ, the gospel of the cross.

But then why would this be called 'foolishness'?

To answer that, we need to take another detour. In Isaiah 29, God gives Isaiah a message of judgment for Jerusalem. He prophecies how enemies would besiege and destroy the city. It is even pictured that God had blinded the people so that they wouldn't see this judgment coming. And then we have these words, the words of God to the prophet: “Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid. Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the LORD, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us?” (Isaiah 29:14-15)

The people of Jerusalem were using all their wisdom and knowledge; they even thought that they could outsmart God and that God wouldn't know and judge their sins. But God was going to bring judgment; all the supposed wisdom and knowledge of Israelites would count for nothing—there was nothing they could do to escape or circumnavigate this judgment. Instead, their pride and scheming were calling down this judgment.

And all this matters because Paul quotes this prophecy in verse 19. Obviously, we are dealing with different situations here. But the general truths remain. Man cannot outsmart God; God's way will end up on top. In verse 25, Paul says: “the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” I think would could paraphrase that in a modern idiom and say that God on His worst day is better than you on your best day. No one will ever outthink or outwork him. C. S. Lewis pointed out that we are created by God and everything good we have comes from Him; therefore, we couldn't be right and God wrong any more than a river could rise above its source.

So, in verse 19, Paul lays out this general idea of God overthrowing human ideas of wisdom. This is repeated in verse 20, where Paul asks where is the wise man, the scholar, or the debater? They are not here; they are not relevant to this discussion because God has made this world's wisdom to be foolishness. And that brings us to verse 21; which interestingly parallels Romans 1:21: “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” (Romans 1:20-21)

Mankind rejected whatever knowledge of God they had, and because of that, they became corrupted. Paul goes on in that passage to talk about how mankind gave in to idolatry because they had lost the knowledge of God. Paul says essentially the same thing here: “The world by wisdom knew not God.” There is a disagreement here: could the world, by wisdom, have known God? Was the general revelation given through creation and conscience enough to find God? Did man have his chance and just (for the most part) squander it? Or was it always impossible? How you answer that depends on how you interpret the rest of verse 21, but for our purposes, it doesn't matter. We do not know what could have happened; what we know is what did happen. And what did happen was that most of the world, outside of the circle of Israel and the Abrahamic revelation, did not have any knowledge of the true God. For all their wisdom and knowledge, they did not have the most important knowledge. Even within Israel, it was something of a struggle to keep that knowledge, and for many people even there, it was not a real or personal knowledge.

The world by wisdom knew not God. Man's way did not work. And so it was that God chose by the foolishness of preaching—that is, by the gospel—to save them that believe. God's way worked where man's way didn't. That is the key idea of this passage—this contrast between God's way and man's way. From the perspective of man's way, God's way seems like foolishness. From the perspective of God's way, man's way is foolishness. That is the main thought here.

Why is that? Why does God's way seem foolish to man? What does man expect from God? Paul answers that in verse 22: signs and wisdom. The Jews expected something miraculous and spectacular. We see that throughout Jesus' ministry—the Jews always wanted to see Him perform some sort of wonder. The Greeks were more interested in philosophy, in some idea that they could think and learn from.

As I said before, you do find both of those things in Christianity. The church has had its signs and its wisdom. But at the heart of the gospel, at the heart of the “foolishness of preaching,” is something that seems foolish and problematic for the world—it is “Christ crucified.”

We are so used to the gospel story that we can lose sight of how strange this is—I was going to say that it sounded strange in the first century, but really it still sounds strange to some outside the church. For some—especially to the Jews—it made no sense for a Divine figure, a supernatural figure to die—to die at all, especially to die in the way Christ did. Jesus, as the Messiah, should have been the irresistible force and yet He had seemingly met the great immovable object. The hero of this story did not have the heroic ending He should have had. For man, especially among the Greeks, this bloody, down-to-earth story about an ordinary man dying like a criminal had nothing to do with the wisdom and philosophy they were interested in. They came for a course in philosophy and got a true crime podcast instead. Add to all of this that, in the first century, there was a stigma around crucifixion that it is hard to recapture for us who only know of it in this context. It was seen as the worst death and so fitting for the worst of men. It was something that ought to have no contact or connection with good humanity, to say nothing of Divinity. A crucified prophet was a hard sell; a crucified God still harder.

If it had been up to them—to either the Jews or the Greeks—to devise a plan of salvation, this would not have been the plan they chose. This was not man's way, and this was not man's wisdom.

To them, if anything, the fact of Christ's crucifixion proved that He was not of God or that God had deserted Him. But look at Jesus' words in John 10:18: “No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.” This thing—which to the world seemed so foolish and so counterintuitive—was nonetheless God's plan. The crucifixion was not an accident or mistake, but the crux of the whole thing. This is God's plan; this is God's wisdom.

But more than that, to the Christian—to the Christian regardless of his previous ethnic background or thought pattern—this is the power of God and the wisdom of God. It isn't just that God is sitting in Heaven with folded arms thinking smugly about how good His plan is. Those who believe find this power and wisdom through personal experience. They have found out that God's way works, while those who do not believe just stand around outside scratching their head at the silliness of it all. God, even using things that seem silly or trivial, can achieve things that man with all of the best of resources can never do.

So we have this general contrast between God's way and man's way. Man sees God's way as foolishness—the preaching of the gospel, the preaching of Christ crucified—seems foolish and yet it is effective. Paul then gives another, more personal application of the same idea.

Just as God had chosen seemingly foolish or shameful elements on which to frame the gospel, so He had largely chosen seemingly foolish or shameful people to build his church. This is verse 26: “not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.” Most of the early converts to Christianity were from the lowest walks of life; the poor, the uneducated, the slaves. It was the ones who had no hope in this world who were most open to hope of another. It was those with no reputation to risk who were willing to throw everything away for this. It was those who had no pretense to wisdom who were willing to be taught. In the second century, an anti-Christian writer brought this up as one of his criticisms of Christianity—that Christians were mostly the poor and uneducated.

Obviously, this is a generality. Note that Paul says 'not many' rather than 'not any.' We know there were some important and influential people even specifically in the Corinthian church. But the general fact holds true. The very fact that many of the people in the Corinthian church were in the Corinthian church at all was proof that God's way was very different than man's way. They were not the people that man, on his devices and with his own wisdom, would have chosen.

God uses the foolish, weak, despised, and nothing things of the world to overthrow the supposed wisdom and strength of the world. Sometimes in theology, you'll run across this phrase about creation; that it was ex nihilo, that is, from nothing. God didn't use preexisting materials to make this world; He made everything from nothing. That is an important point for cosmology. But also reminds us of this reality: that God can do more with nothing that anyone else could do with everything. And even if we are nothing, God can still make something out of us.

So, Paul began by saying that he came to preach the gospel, and this seemingly foolish message was the means of salvation. He showed the contrast between man's ideas and plans and those of God. God's way seemed foolish and yet it worked. God chose strange medicines, but they brought the cure. The very fact that they were in the church was proof of God's working and that God could use strange and unlikely means. The climax of all this is verse 30: “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.”

This is what God's way can do and what man's way can't. The heart of God's way—the thing that seemed so foolish and problematic to the world—was Jesus; as Christians, we have Jesus, and in Him, we have everything else. There is wisdom—true wisdom that comes from God. There is righteousness—a right standing with God. There is sanctification or holiness—moral goodness and a change of nature. Redemption—deliverance from the power of sin. That is what the Corinthians had—that is what all Christians have. But it is only the basis of faith in the gospel.

That is why verse 30 is bookended by two other verses. 29: “That no flesh should glory in his presence.” 31: “He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” 

Verse 31 is especially interesting because it is a quotation. God is telling Jeremiah of a great judgment that would come—specifically that would come upon both the Jews and the Gentiles—and he adds this: “Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.” (Jeremiah 9:23-24)

When judgment came, wisdom and strength and riches would mean nothing. All that really mattered would be knowing God and having a relationship with Him because the only hope they had was in Him, in His love and righteousness.

And so it is here. In the end, all human wisdom will come to nothing. Our only hope is in God's way, in the gospel, in Christ. Therefore, that is all that matters, and (in one sense) there is nothing else worth talking about.

If salvation came through philosophy, through an understanding of a complex intellectual concept, then those who figured it out would have room to boast. If salvation was based on eloquence and fine words, then those most skilled would be most successful and most praised. But salvation comes through faith in the simple and seemingly foolish gospel, and therefore, there is no reason for anyone to boast. Any attempt at that is counterproductive since it always leads away from the cross.

And that is why the sectarian spirit that had infected the Corinthians was so wrong. They were rallying around different preachers. These preachers may have had different styles; perhaps some were just overall more skilled than others. But in the end, all of that was irrelevant—at least in this context. Obviously, every preacher should want to be the best preacher they can be. But a man converted by a best preacher in the world is no more a Christian than someone converted under the worst. Because the only way any preaching can save anyone is by bringing them to Christ who is our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.