“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God… but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
— 1 Corinthians 1:18, 23-24
Context & Key Themes
Paul opens his letter to the Corinthians with a greeting and then immediately moves into the first of the problems that have been reported to him. The greeting itself is carefully crafted — Paul calls himself an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, addresses the Corinthians as those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, and frames the whole letter as being written not only to them but to all who call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in every place. The universality matters. What Paul is about to say will correct the Corinthians specifically, but the corrections apply to any church that begins to mistake the gospel’s messengers for the gospel itself.
The chapter then moves through three distinct movements. First, Paul’s thanksgiving for the Corinthians, which is remarkably warm given what he is about to tell them. Second, the report from Chloe’s household about factions forming in the church, and Paul’s initial rebuke. Third, and occupying the bulk of the chapter, Paul’s theological response — an extended argument that the gospel centers on the cross, that the cross is foolishness by worldly standards, and that God has deliberately chosen the foolish and weak things of the world to shame the wise and strong. The Corinthians had organized themselves around competing teachers as if those teachers were the point. Paul’s response is that Christ is not divided, and neither should his church be.
Summary
Paul opens with his standard apostolic greeting but quickly pivots into thanksgiving. He thanks God for the grace given to the Corinthians in Christ Jesus, for how they have been enriched in every way — in speech and knowledge — and for the fact that they do not lack any spiritual gift as they wait for the revealing of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is confident that God, who is faithful, will sustain them to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. Even knowing everything he is about to write, Paul begins by naming what is actually true of them.
Then the pivot. Paul appeals to them by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that there be no divisions among them, but that they be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to him by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among them. Some are saying I follow Paul, others I follow Apollos, or I follow Cephas, or even I follow Christ. Paul responds with a stinging series of questions: Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? He is actually relieved that he baptized so few of them personally, because it means no one can claim to have been baptized into Paul’s name. Christ did not send him to baptize but to preach the gospel — and not with lofty speech or wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
From here Paul’s response expands into the argument that governs the rest of the chapter. The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to those being saved it is the power of God. Paul quotes Isaiah: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart. Where is the wise one? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but Paul and his fellow apostles preach Christ crucified — a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
Paul then turns the lens on the Corinthians themselves. Consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are — so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him the Corinthians are in Christ Jesus, who has become to them wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.
Reflection
What Paul is doing in this chapter sets the foundation for everything else in the letter. The Corinthians’ problem was not ultimately factionalism — the factions were a symptom. The root problem was that they had absorbed their city’s habits of valuing rhetoric, status, wisdom, and clever teachers, and had imported those habits into the church. The teachers they were lining up behind — Paul, Apollos, Cephas — were not themselves the problem; Paul will speak warmly of Apollos and Peter later in the letter. The problem was the impulse to organize Christian identity around human figures at all. The church is not a following of a teacher. It is a people bought by a crucified Lord.
The argument about the foolishness of the cross is where the theology deepens. Paul is not saying Christianity is anti-intellectual, and he is not flattering the uneducated. He is saying that the gospel’s central event — God saving the world through a crucified Messiah — is so fundamentally contrary to every category of ancient wisdom and power that it cannot be received except as a gift. A Jewish mindset expected a Messiah who would come with signs of power and deliverance from Rome. A Greek mindset expected philosophical profundity that would commend itself on its merits to the wise. A crucified Messiah offends both. It is a dead king, a failed liberator, a criminal’s execution elevated to cosmic significance. There is no path from worldly wisdom to accepting that message. It has to be given from outside.
And that is why Paul refuses to dress the gospel in rhetorical finery. If he had come to Corinth with eloquence and philosophical argument, he would have been attracting the Corinthians to himself rather than to the cross. He deliberately preached plainly so that no one could mistake the power of the message for the skill of the messenger. This is the pastoral principle underneath the whole chapter. When a church organizes itself around human personalities, it has already lost the plot. When it organizes itself around the crucified Christ, the personalities lose their grip. The rest of the letter will apply this principle to issue after issue. But the foundation is laid here: Christ, not personalities. Christ crucified, not human wisdom. Christ’s power, not ours.