The Foolish Things of the World...

The Fellowship of the Bean is studying 1st Corinthians. Paul in the first chapter was trying to unify the Corinthians. They were dividing themselves up according to teacher: some were for Paul, some were for Apollos, etc. Some were even claiming to be just following Christ. They claimed Paul was a poor speaker with lowly appearance. They wanted a more polish rhetorician. Paul began building up the Corinthians by tearing them down. He first pointed out that they did not choose to follow Christ. The message of the Cross was unbelievable to the world: a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks. Paul stressed that God chose them and not for reasons they would like. God chose them because they were foolish and powerless. Here are the verses at the end of chapter 1.

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. (1 Corinthians 1:27-29 ESV)

Gordon Fee comments poetically on verse 29 of Chapter 1.

With this clause Paul expresses the ultimate purpose of the divine folly: "so that no one may boast before him." God, it turns out, deliberately chose the foolish things of the world, the cross and the Corinthians believers, so that he could remove forever, from every human creature, any possible grounds on their part of standing in the divine presence with something in their hands. The ground is level at the foot of the cross; not a single thing that any of us possesses will advantage him/her before the living God--not brilliance, "clout," achievement, money, or prestige. By choosing the lowly Corinthians God declared that he has forever ruled out every imaginable human system of gaining his favor. It is all--"trust him completely" (v. 31)--or nothing. (p. 84, Gordon D. Fee, The New International Commentary on the New Testament: The First Epistle to the Corinthians