1 Corinthians 1
Corinth ran on cleverness. Standing rose and fell on who could speak well, win a crowd, look impressive. And the church had let that scoreboard in the door, splintering into fan clubs around its favourite teachers - I am of Paul; and I of Apollos (v. 12). Paul ends the fight with one question: was Paul crucified for you? (v. 13). None of them was. Only One died for this church, and only One has a claim on it.3
So Paul preaches the one thing the city was sure to mock. A Saviour nailed up like a criminal is foolishness to the perishing - weak, embarrassing, the opposite of impressive (v. 18). That is the point. God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise (v. 27), so no flesh should glory in his presence (v. 29). The cross runs on a scoreboard the world cannot read - and at the dead center of this whole chapter stands Christ crucified.
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1 Corinthians 1:1-9Called to Be Saints · Behind in No Gift
1Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, 2Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours: 3Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. 4I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; 5That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge; 6Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you: 7So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: 8Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Paul begins where he always does - by grounding his standing not in his learning or his eloquence but in the will of God: Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God (v. 1). He did not appoint himself; he was called. And he names the readers the same way. They are the church of God which is at Corinth - not Paul's church, not Apollos's, but God's - and they are them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints (v. 2). This is a striking thing to say to a congregation Paul is about to rebuke for quarreling, pride, and worse. He does not call them saints because they have behaved like saints. He calls them sanctified - set apart, made holy - in Christ Jesus, on the basis of His work, not theirs. Their holiness is first of all a gift and a status before it is ever a record of achievement. And the circle is wider than Corinth: this letter is also for all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Already, before a single problem is named, Paul has quietly answered the divisions to come. A church that knows itself called and sanctified by Another has no ground left for boasting in itself.
Two words carry the whole gospel, and Paul opens with them every time: grace and peace. Grace is favour freely given to people who could never earn it; peace is what that grace produces, the settled wholeness of those who have been brought near. The order matters - grace first, then peace, never the reverse. To a church busy ranking itself by talent and standing, the greeting is already a quiet correction, because grace by definition cannot be earned. Then, before one word of rebuke, Paul reaches for thanksgiving: I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ (v. 4). Notice what he is grateful for - grace given, not merit shown. Whatever good the Corinthians have, he traces it back to its source; it was handed to them. His first instinct toward a troubled church is to thank God for what God has done in them.
Paul presses the thanksgiving further: That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge… So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (vv. 5-7). The Corinthians were not a poor church. They were rich in speech and rich in knowledge; they came behind in no gift, lacking nothing the Spirit gives. Paul names this honestly and thanks God for it. But there is a shadow already visible in the praise, for it is exactly this abundance that has become their danger - gifts meant to build the body had begun to be hoarded as trophies, eloquence had become a mirror they loved to look into. Yet Paul does not despise the gifts; he sets them in their proper light by adding what they are for: a people waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Gifts are not the destination; they are provision for the road, given to a church that is still leaning forward toward Christ's appearing. A gift cradled as a trophy looks back at itself; a gift held rightly looks ahead to Him.
Where, then, does a fragile, gifted, quarrelsome church find its security? Not in its gifts, and not in itself. Paul anchors it elsewhere: Christ shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord (vv. 8-9). The word confirm means to make firm, to establish - and the One who does it is Christ, not the Corinthians. They will be kept and presented blameless not because they have outgrown their failings but because He will hold them to the end. And the ground of that confidence is named in three plain words: God is faithful. The hope does not rest on the steadiness of the church's grip on God, but on the steadiness of God's grip on the church. He called them - the initiative was His - and He called them unto the fellowship of his Son. That is the destination toward which the whole chapter is already pointing: not a club gathered around a favourite teacher, but a people gathered into fellowship with Jesus Christ Himself.3
1 Corinthians 1:10-17Is Christ Divided?
10Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. 11For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. 12Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. 13Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul? 14I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius; 15Lest any should say that I had baptized in mine own name. 16And I baptized also the household of Stephanas: besides, I know not whether I baptized any other. 17For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.
Now Paul comes to the wound, and notice how he opens it: Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you (v. 10). He does not command from above; he beseeches - he pleads - and he does it by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one name that ought to unite them. The plea is not for a bland uniformity in which no one ever differs, but for them to be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment - knit back into one body around one Lord. The trouble had been reported to him plainly: there are contentions among you (v. 11). And then he names the shape of it: every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ (v. 12). Each faction had attached itself to a name - the founder, the eloquent teacher, the chief apostle, and a party that may have claimed Christ in a way that excluded the rest. The irony is sharp. The very thing meant to be common to them all - belonging to Christ - some had turned into one more banner to compete under. A church can splinter not over heresy but over heroes.
Paul answers the whole quarrel not with an argument but with three questions, the first of which cuts to the root: Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul? (v. 13). The logic is devastating in its simplicity. To say I am of Paul is to put Paul in a place that belongs to one Person alone - and Paul was not the one who hung on a cross for them. Only the One who was crucified for them has any claim on their ultimate allegiance, and they were not baptized into Paul's name but into Christ's. The questions expose the divisions for what they are: not a harmless preference for one teacher over another, but a quiet displacement of Christ from the center He alone may occupy. Is Christ divided? - the answer is unthinkable. He is one, His body is one, and to tear the church into parties is to act as though the indivisible Christ could be parceled out among rival camps. The cure for every faction is to remember who actually died for them. No teacher, however gifted, was crucified for the church; and a loyalty that belongs to the Crucified cannot be handed to anyone else.
Paul then turns to his own practice, and does so with a striking restraint: I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius… And I baptized also the household of Stephanas: besides, I know not whether I baptized any other (vv. 14-16). He is glad, in hindsight, that he personally baptized so few - not because baptism is unimportant, but because in a church bent on forming parties around names, even that could have been twisted into a boast: I was baptized by Paul. He will give no one fuel for it. His whole point, made plain in the next verse, is that his calling was never to gather a following to himself: For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel (v. 17). The contrast is not between baptizing and preaching as if one mattered and the other did not; it is a matter of Paul's particular commission and of keeping the spotlight where it belongs. His task was to herald the message, and the message is about Another. The moment a messenger's own name begins to draw the loyalty that belongs to Christ, the messenger has failed at the one thing he was sent to do.
The verse ends with a phrase that opens onto the whole rest of the chapter: Paul preaches not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect (v. 17). Corinth prized eloquence - the polished rhetoric of the practised orator who could sway a crowd by sheer skill with words. Paul deliberately refused to compete on that ground, and he tells us why. If he had arrived dressing the gospel in dazzling rhetoric, the glory would have stuck to the speaker, not to the cross; people would have admired the performance and missed the message. Wisdom of words can actually empty the cross of its power - make it of none effect - by burying the offense of a crucified Saviour under a display the world finds impressive. So Paul lets the message stand plain and unadorned. The power was never meant to be in the packaging. A cross announced cleverly enough to win applause has, in winning it, lost the very thing it came to say. The gospel does not need to be made impressive; it needs to be made clear, and then left to do its own work.
1 Corinthians 1:18-31We Preach Christ Crucified · Glory in the Lord
18For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. 20Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. 22For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: 23But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; 24But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. 25Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 26For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: 27But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; 28And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: 29That no flesh should glory in his presence. 30But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: 31That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.
One message, two hearers, opposite verdicts - that is the dividing line Paul draws across the whole human race in verse 18. The same preaching of the cross sounds like foolishness in one set of ears and the power of God in another. To them that perish - those whose eyes are fixed on this present age and its measures of greatness - a crucified Saviour is simply absurd; the cross was an instrument of shame, reserved for the lowest criminals, and rescue by way of such degradation looks like nonsense. To us which are saved, that same cross is sheer power. Paul does not apologize for the offense; he leans into it, and he shows it was foretold: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent (v. 19, citing Isaiah). Then come the taunting questions: Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? (v. 20). The accumulated cleverness of the age - the philosopher, the scholar, the skilled debater - is shown up as helpless before the one thing it most needs to know. The gospel will always look like folly to those whose only instrument is worldly wisdom. The question the cross forces is not whether it appears wise to the world, but whose eyes a person is finally trusting.2
Paul presses deeper into why God works this way: For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe (v. 21). There is a quiet verdict here on all human attempts to reason a way up to God. In God's wise ordering of things, the world - for all its philosophy and learning - by wisdom knew not God. Cleverness, left to itself, could not climb high enough to find Him. So God chose another way altogether, one that looks like foolishness by the world's reckoning: the plain proclamation of a crucified Saviour, received not by the brilliant but by them that believe. Notice the word pleased. This was no reluctant fallback; it pleased God to save in a way that overturns every human expectation. The door into salvation was made so low that the proud cannot enter standing up. It is not opened by the accumulation of knowledge or the sharpness of an argument, but by faith - which is precisely why it is open to everyone, the unlettered as readily as the learned. The very foolishness of the method is its mercy: it puts the wise and the simple on exactly the same footing before the cross.
Paul now names the two great cultures of his world and the thing each demanded: For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom (v. 22). The one wanted a display of power - a mighty sign from heaven, a conquering deliverer who would overthrow Rome and vindicate the nation. The other wanted a system of thought - an elegant philosophy that could explain the nature of things to the satisfaction of human reason. Neither was looking for a Messiah nailed to a Roman cross. But we preach Christ crucified, Paul says, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness (v. 23). To the sign-seeker, a crucified deliverer was a contradiction - a stumbling stone, an offense, the very opposite of the triumphant figure expected. To the wisdom-seeker, it was simply ridiculous - folly dressed as religion. The cross breaks every category the world brings to it. And yet, Paul continues, unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God (v. 24). The same crucified Christ who is stumblingblock to one and folly to another is, to those who are called, the answer to both demands at once - the true power the Jew sought and the true wisdom the Greek sought, found not in a sign or a system but in a Person on a cross.3
The foolishness of God. The weakness of God. The phrases are almost startling, and Paul means them to be (v. 25). Of course there is no real folly or weakness in God. He is naming what the world calls folly and weakness: the cross. And his claim is bold - that this so-called foolishness outstrips the best of human wisdom, and this so-called weakness overpowers the greatest human strength. Look at the crucified Christ, arrested, beaten, mocked, hung up to die. To the world it is a picture of pure defeat. It is in fact the place where the deepest wisdom and the mightiest power of God break into the open. That chosen weakness does what no display of force could ever do: it conquers sin and death, not by crushing them from above but by absorbing them, taking them into Himself and rising. The world measures wisdom by cleverness and power by domination, and by those rulers the cross fails utterly. God runs on another scale. On His, a Saviour laying down His life is the wisest and strongest thing that has ever happened.
Paul now turns the lens onto the Corinthians themselves - a living proof of the principle: For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called (v. 26). Look around at the church, he says. It is not stocked with the world's elite - the highly educated, the powerful, the well-born. And that is no accident; it is God's design: God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are (vv. 27-28). The list descends deliberately - foolish… weak… base… despised… things which are not - until it reaches the people the world counts as nothing at all. These are the ones God deliberately chooses. The very makeup of the church is an affront to a world that ranks people by wisdom, might, and status. God reaches past everyone the world would pick, and lays hold of the overlooked, precisely to overturn the world's entire scale of value. The smallness and weakness of the called is not an embarrassment to be explained away; it is the point.
Paul states the reason God works this way, and then names the glorious alternative to human boasting: God chooses the weak and the base that no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption (vv. 29-30). The purpose is laid bare in verse 29: if the church were made up of the wise and the mighty, they could take the credit, and the glory would go to human achievement. But a church of the foolish and the weak can boast in only one thing - that God did it. And then verse 30 lifts the eyes to where everything the believer needs is found. It is not of themselves but of him - from God - that they are in Christ Jesus. And Christ Himself is then named as four things at once: He is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. These are not four separate prizes handed out one by one; they are Christ Himself, given whole, and seen from four angles. He is the believer's wisdom - so the Greek's search for wisdom ends in Him. He is their righteousness - their right standing before God, not earned but received. He is their sanctification - the holiness named back in verse 2, His work setting them apart. And He is their redemption - the price paid to set them free. Everything the chapter has stripped from human pride it now restores in Christ: all of it given, all of it His.1
Further study
- The Greek text of 1 Corinthians 1 word by word, each term linked to its lexical entry - useful for stauros (vv. 17-18, “the cross”), for m&omacron;ria (vv. 18, 21, 23, 25, “foolishness”), for kl&emacron;tos (vv. 2, 24, “called”), and for the four-fold wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption of verse 30.
- 1 Corinthians 1 ↔ Isaiah 29 · Jeremiah 9 · Colossians 2Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying 1 Corinthians 1 to the rest of Scripture - I will destroy the wisdom of the wise (v. 19) drawn from Isaiah 29:14, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord (v. 31) from Jeremiah 9:23-24, and Christ… the wisdom of God (v. 24) read beside the One in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2:3).
- 1 Corinthians 1 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on 1 Corinthians 1 - the greeting and the phrase called to be saints (v. 2), the much-discussed party slogans of verse 12, the grammar of was Paul crucified for you? (v. 13), and the dense closing line that names Christ our wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption (v. 30).
Where this echoes in Scripture
Called to Be Saints · Behind in No Gift
- Philippians 1:6he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.The confidence of verses 8-9 - the One who began the work is faithful to complete it.
- 1 Thessalonians 5:24Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.The same ground as verse 9 - the God who calls is faithful to keep those He calls.
- John 14:27Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.The peace of verse 3 - a gift from Christ Himself, not earned by the one who receives it.
- 1 Corinthians 4:7what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory?Paul’s own answer to the boasting behind the divisions - every gift (vv. 5-7) was received, not achieved.
- Jude 24Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory.The blameless standing of verse 8 - kept and presented faultless by God’s own keeping.
- Colossians 1:22to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight.The blameless presentation of verse 8 is Christ’s own work, not the church’s achievement.
Is Christ Divided?
- Ephesians 4:4-6There is one body, and one Spirit... One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.The oneness Paul appeals to in verse 13 - a single body that cannot be split among rival camps.
- John 17:21That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.Christ’s own prayer for the unity the Corinthians were fracturing (vv. 10-13).
- 1 Corinthians 3:5-7Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed?... God that giveth the increase.Paul’s own later answer to the party slogans of verse 12 - the teachers are only servants; God gives the growth.
- Galatians 6:14But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.Why Paul guards the cross from being “made of none effect” (v. 17) - it is the one thing worth glorying in.
- Revelation 5:9thou... hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.The one death behind the one people of verse 13 - redeemed by His blood, not a teacher’s name.
We Preach Christ Crucified · Glory in the Lord
- Isaiah 29:14the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.The prophecy Paul quotes in verse 19 - God overturning the wisdom of the wise.
- Jeremiah 9:23-24let not the wise man glory in his wisdom... but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me.The Scripture behind verse 31 - the only fitting boast is to know the Lord.
- Colossians 2:3In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.Christ named the wisdom of God of verses 24 and 30 - the treasury of all wisdom.
- John 1:3All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.The wisdom of God of verse 24 is the Word by whom all things were made - wisdom now made flesh.
- Colossians 1:17And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.The same Christ who is our wisdom (v. 24) is the One in whom all things hold together.
- 2 Corinthians 5:21he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.How Christ is “made unto us… righteousness” (v. 30) - His perfection reckoned to us.
- Colossians 2:15having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.The power of God in the cross (vv. 18, 24) - victory won through what looked like defeat.