Commentary - 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

Bird's-eye view

In this potent passage, the Apostle Paul drives home his central point from the preceding verses: God's method of salvation is designed from start to finish to demolish human pride. He turns from the general principle of the cross's foolishness to the specific, concrete reality of the Corinthian church itself. He holds them up as Exhibit A. By simply looking around the room at their own congregation, they could see that God does not operate according to the world's metrics of success. The church was not a collection of the "best and brightest" from Corinthian society. Instead, God deliberately chose the unimpressive, the overlooked, and the marginalized to be the vessels of His grace. This divine strategy has a clear and ultimate purpose: to ensure that when the story is told, no human being can take credit. All the glory, all the boasting, must be redirected to the only one who deserves it, the Lord Himself. The passage culminates in a glorious declaration that everything a believer needs, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, is found not in themselves, but is a gift, embodied entirely in the person of Christ Jesus.

This is God's great reversal. The world builds its towers of Babel with the bricks of human achievement, wisdom, and strength. God builds His kingdom with living stones that the world deems unfit for any construction project. The entire operation is designed so that at the end of the day, only one name is exalted. This is not just a description of the Corinthian church; it is a foundational principle of the gospel for all time.

Outline

Context In 1 Corinthians

This passage is the capstone of Paul's opening argument against the factions and pride that were tearing the Corinthian church apart. The believers were dividing themselves based on allegiance to different human leaders (Paul, Apollos, Cephas), a practice rooted in the worldly wisdom and rhetorical celebrity culture of Greco-Roman society. Paul confronts this by showing them that the very message that saved them, the cross of Christ, is an offense to this kind of worldly wisdom. It is "foolishness" to the Gentiles and a "stumbling block" to the Jews. Now, in verses 26-31, he applies this principle directly to them. He essentially says, "Look at yourselves! Your very existence as a church proves my point." They were not saved because they were wise, powerful, or noble. They were saved in spite of their lack of these things. This section, therefore, provides the theological foundation for the practical rebukes that will follow throughout the letter. It demolishes the basis for their pride and redirects their focus from human leaders to the God who called them and the Christ who is their all in all.

Key Issues

God's Grand Reversal

The central theme here is a radical inversion of values. The world has a clear hierarchy. It values wisdom (the philosophers), power (the magistrates and military leaders), and nobility (the aristocracy). These are the people who "matter." These are the influencers, the movers and shakers. Any sensible movement seeking to change the world would naturally try to recruit from these ranks. But God's strategy is precisely the opposite. He walks right past the honor roll students, the team captains, and the student body presidents, and He builds His church out of the kids smoking in the bathroom, the ones picked last for dodgeball, and the ones nobody even knew were there. This is not an accident. It is a deliberate, calculated strategy. God is not just indifferent to the world's status games; He is actively at war with them. He chooses the "nothings" to dismantle the "somethings." He does this to show that the power is not in the vessel, but in the gospel itself. The power is in Him. This strips away any possibility of human pride. If a brilliant orator converts thousands, people might applaud the orator. If a stuttering fisherman converts thousands, everyone knows it must be God.

Verse by Verse Commentary

26 For consider your calling, brothers, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble.

Paul begins with a direct command: consider. Look, see, take stock. He's not asking them to ponder a theoretical concept but to observe an empirical fact about their own congregation. He calls them brothers, reminding them of their unity in Christ even as he addresses their divisions. And what are they to consider? Their calling. This refers to God's effectual call, the sovereign summons that brought them out of darkness and into His marvelous light. And the composition of this called-out body was a living sermon. There were not many who measured up to the world's standards. Not many were wise "according to the flesh," meaning by human, worldly standards of philosophy and rhetoric. Not many were mighty, possessing political power or social influence. Not many were noble, belonging to the aristocratic, high-born families. He doesn't say "not any," but "not many." God certainly can and does save the rich and powerful, but it's not His usual method. The average Corinthian believer was, by worldly metrics, a nobody.

27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong,

Here is the great conjunction: But God. This is the hinge on which salvation history turns. Man has his way of evaluating, but God has His. The verb is chosen. This is the language of divine, sovereign election. This was not a random assortment of people who happened to wander into the church. God deliberately selected them. And His selection criteria were the inverse of the world's. He chose the foolish things, not just foolish people, but the very message and methods that the world scoffs at. And for what purpose? To shame the wise. God's plan is agonistic; it is a contest. He is actively putting the world's wisdom to shame, exposing its bankruptcy. He does the same with power. He chose the weak things, the powerless and insignificant, to confound and shame the strong. The Roman empire, with all its legions, was ultimately brought to its knees not by a greater army, but by a handful of nobodies preaching a crucified carpenter.

28 and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may abolish the things that are,

Paul piles on the descriptors to make his point inescapable. God has chosen the base things, the low-born, the common. He has chosen the despised, those who are looked down upon and considered contemptible. He then reaches for the most extreme category possible: He has chosen the things that are not. In the eyes of the world, these people don't even register. They are non-entities, zeroes on the social ledger. And the purpose of choosing these "nothings" is to abolish, to nullify, to bring to nothing, the things that are, the very people and systems that the world considers to be "something." God is not just building a new thing alongside the old; He is using the new to dismantle the old. He is demonstrating that all the world's power structures and value systems are temporary and ultimately irrelevant.

29 so that no flesh may boast before God.

This is the ultimate purpose, the grand theological conclusion of God's entire strategy. The Greek is emphatic: "so that no flesh whatsoever..." God has arranged the entire plan of salvation in such a way as to systematically eliminate any grounds for human pride. If salvation were a reward for wisdom, the wise would boast. If it were a prize for strength, the strong would boast. If it were an inheritance for the noble, the noble would boast. But since it is a free gift given to the foolish, weak, and base, no one can stand before God on the last day and say, "I contributed this." All mouths will be stopped. All glory will flow in one direction only. The phrase before God is crucial. In the presence of the Holy One, all human claims to merit evaporate like mist in the sun.

30 But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption,

Having torn down the edifice of human pride, Paul now builds up the glorious truth of our position in Christ. Again, the source is God: by His doing, or "of Him," you are in Christ Jesus. Our union with Christ is not our achievement; it is God's sovereign work. And in that union, Christ Himself becomes for us everything we lack. He is our wisdom from God. We are the fools, but He is our wisdom. This is not a wisdom we possess, but a person we possess. Paul then unpacks what this wisdom entails. It is threefold: righteousness, our legal standing before God, a perfect record we could never earn, which is gifted to us. It is sanctification, our progressive growth in holiness, the process of being made more like Christ, which is the work of His Spirit in us. And it is redemption, our final deliverance from the presence of sin and death, the glorification of our bodies. All of it, from our legal pardon to our final perfection, is found in, and is, Christ Himself.

31 so that, just as it is written, “LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD.”

Paul concludes by grounding his argument in Scripture, quoting from Jeremiah 9:24. This shows that God's purpose to exclude human boasting is not a new idea but has been His plan all along. The problem is not with boasting itself, but with the object of our boasting. It is entirely right and proper to boast, to exult, to glory, to make much of something. The Christian life is not the elimination of boasting but the redirection of it. We are forbidden to boast in ourselves, our wisdom, our strength, or our accomplishments. But we are commanded to boast in the Lord. We are to make our boast in who He is and what He has done. Our testimony should be a constant declaration that everything we are and everything we have is from Him, through Him, and for Him. He is the beginning, the middle, and the end of our salvation.

Application

This passage is a potent antidote to two opposite errors that plague the church. The first is the error of pride and elitism. Whenever we begin to think that our church is successful because of our clever strategies, our dynamic preacher, our sophisticated theology, or our culturally savvy outreach, we are thinking like Corinthians. We are starting to measure by the flesh. This text forces us to look at the cross and at the composition of the true church and confess that any good we see is by God's grace alone. It humbles the proud and reminds us that we bring nothing to the table but our sin, which He graciously takes away.

The second error is the error of despair and insecurity. Many Christians feel like nobodies. They look at their lives and see weakness, foolishness, and a distinct lack of nobility. They feel they have little to offer God. This passage is a glorious comfort to them. It tells them that they are exactly the kind of person God delights to use. He is not looking for your strength, but for your weakness, because His power is made perfect in it. He is not looking for your wisdom, but for your simple faith in the "foolish" message of the cross. Your lack of worldly status does not disqualify you; it qualifies you to be a showcase for the grace of God. Our confidence, therefore, should never be in what we are for God, but in what Christ is for us: our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification, and our redemption. So let us boast. Let us boast loudly and long, but let us boast in the Lord.