With verse 18 of chapter 1 we come to the first major treatment of a theme that Paul considers in the book, the theme of wisdom and foolishness, the wisdom of God contrasted with the foolishness of men. It is a major section because Paul deals with that not only in the remainder of chapter 1 but throughout chapter 2. And it is not until chapter 3 that he gets back to the matter of the divisions among the church at Corinth that he mentioned in the introduction.
There is an interesting connection between the end of the introduction, in verse 17, and the beginning of this new section on the wisdom and power of God, in verse 18. It is not so evident in the New International Version, but it is evident in the Greek language that Paul was using. In verse 17 Paul speaks of the words of human wisdom. It is in the plural; there is more than one kind of word of human wisdom. The Greek term for “word” is logos and the plural form is logoi. Paul says that Christ did not send him to baptize but to preach the Gospel, and not with words of human wisdom. Then he finishes that verse and begins verse 18 by talking about the “message of the cross.” In Greek it is “the word of the cross.” It is the same Greek word, logos, that Paul uses to describe the teaching that comes from human wisdom. Only here in verse 18 the “message” or “word” is in the singular. What Paul is saying is that God did not send him with all of the various and competing words of human wisdom or philosophy, but with that single word, that word of the Gospel which, as he goes on to show, is the power of God unto salvation to anyone who believes. That contrast sets up what he is going to do here.
We can outline 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5 in four sections. First of all, Paul shows the failure of human wisdom in verses 18-20. Second, he shows the power of God’s foolishness in verses 21-25. Third, he shows God’s choice of the foolish, the weak, and the nobodies to confound the wise in verses 26-31. And finally, he shows the implication of all of this theology for the preaching of the Gospel in the first five verses of chapter 2.
This first point that he makes is very significant, namely, the failure of human wisdom. And it was particularly appropriate in writing to a Greek church in a Greek environment because if there is anything the Greeks prided themselves on, it was wisdom. They boasted in their philosophy. What Paul is showing here is that God has simply undermined, destroyed, and brought to nothing all of this vaunted wisdom of the world in order that by the simplicity of the Gospel, God might actually save in a powerful way a people for the glory of His name.
The world regards the Gospel as foolishness, when in fact its beliefs are the ones that are foolish. Oh, the world calls it wisdom. The world has its philosophies, its science, and its careful investigations. The foolishness of all these things is shown in their inability to produce the kind of results that people hope and earnestly expect they will produce. There ought to be some kind of connection between wisdom and results. This is not the same thing as talking about information. You can have all kinds of information. A computer can store a lot of information. But wisdom is a step beyond that. Wisdom is that which says, “From all of this information that I’ve gathered, all of these facts that I’m putting together, I’m able to put together a consistent picture. I’m able to see what’s important and what isn’t important and, on the basis of what I understand to be important, project what ought to be done.” Here is precisely the point at which the wisdom of the world, which is actually the foolishness of the world, is found wanting.
