Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Corinthians · About this commentary
Not Many Wise, Not Many Noble
1 Corinthians 1:26-31
26 For you see your calling, brothers, that not many are wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, and not many noble; · WEB
The congregation's own membership list is the argument — God chose the unimpressive on purpose, so that boasting would have nowhere to stand.
For you see your calling, brothers, that not many are wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, and not many noble 1 Corinthians 1:26.
The evidence Paul produces is the church itself. Look around the room: not many intellectuals, not many with power, not many well born. The three categories are exactly the three the previous verses named and the three Corinth measured by. Not many is careful — some were of standing, and the letter names a few, including a household with a house large enough to host and a man of civic position 1 Corinthians 1:16 1 Corinthians 16:15 Romans 16:23. The point is proportion, not absence.
But God chose the foolish things of the world that he might put to shame those who are wise. God chose the weak things of the world that he might put to shame the things that are strong 1 Corinthians 1:27.
The verb chose governs three clauses, and it is deliberate. This was not God making do with whoever answered; it was selection with a purpose, and the purpose is stated twice — that he might put to shame. The method matches the message: a gospel whose center is a crucifixion is carried by a membership the world would not have recruited.
God chose the lowly things of the world, and the things that are despised, and the things that don't exist, that he might bring to nothing the things that exist 1 Corinthians 1:28.
The list descends — foolish, weak, lowly, despised — and then goes past the bottom to the things that don't exist, the nobodies, what a status-conscious city would not count at all. Against them stand the things that exist, the people who register, and those are the ones brought to nothing. Scripture has said this from the beginning: a younger son, a barren woman, the smallest tribe, a shepherd boy, a carpenter's town 1 Samuel 16:11 Deuteronomy 7:7 Judges 6:15 John 1:46.
That no flesh should boast before God 1 Corinthians 1:29.
There is the purpose of the whole arrangement, and it is the letter's recurring target — boast sounds in eight verses of this letter 1 Corinthians 1:31 1 Corinthians 3:21 1 Corinthians 4:7 1 Corinthians 5:6. God did not merely permit a humble beginning; he engineered one, so that nobody would have material for a claim.
Because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who was made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption 1 Corinthians 1:30.
And then the positive side, which is more generous than the rebuke was severe. They are not merely deprived of their boast; they are given four things in a person. The wisdom Corinth was chasing is not withheld — it is Christ, made wisdom to them from God, along with righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Everything they wanted to achieve or be admired for is handed over as a gift, in him, which is why the quotation that closes the chapter is not a prohibition on boasting but a redirection of it: he who boasts, let him boast in the Lord 1 Corinthians 1:31 Jeremiah 9:23–24.
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