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Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” 20 and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” 21 So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.
Paul gives two warnings in this text with the phrase, “let no one.” He is wrapping up what he has to say about the two-fold problem with the Corinth saints: aligning themselves into parties revolved around church leaders and being enamored with worldly wisdom. He had brought up the first problem in 1:10-12: I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. 11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. 12 What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.”
That discussion led him to present the subject of wisdom – the world’s versus God’s – in verse 18 through the end of chapter 2. As he begins chapter 3, he notes that he really cannot go into God’s wisdom with real depth because of the first problem – their taking up sides under the names of church leaders. Thus, the discussion which leads up to now about leaders being no more than servants.
Consider now his concluding remarks about wisdom. Let no one deceive himself. That is a strong word – deceive. It reveals Paul’s impatience with the matter of trying to be wise to the world. It implies dishonesty, even if with oneself. It implies that the real reason a Christian finds the world’s wisdom appealing is not out of “intellectual honesty,” but for other motives, the main one, no doubt, being pride.
He goes on: If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. If a Christian believer really does desire wisdom, then he needs to become what amounts to being a fool as far as the world is concern. If he is proud of appearing wise to the culture of his age, his cure is to turn to the foolishness of the gospel. There he will become truly wise.
19 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” 20 and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”
The point of the matter is that the world’s wisdom is foolish to God. Up to this time, Paul has conceded that God’s wisdom appears foolish to man. Now it is time to consider how man’s wisdom appears to God. I am reminded of a quote from C. S. Lewis:
What are we to make of Jesus Christ? This is a question which has, in a sense, a frantically comic side. For the real question is not what we are to make of Christ, but what is he to make of us?
What then does God make of man’s wisdom? It is foolishness. Note, there is a big difference between what man makes of God’s wisdom and what God makes of man’s wisdom. To man, God’s wisdom appears foolish; to God, man’s wisdom is foolish; for what God thinks of anything, that is indeed what it truly is.
Paul quotes two scripture verses to present God’s position. The first is from Job 5:13: He catches the wise in their craftiness. Man, in his wisdom, tries to outwit God. Through developing elaborate systems of thought, or usually through mere witticisms, he tries to make God irrelevant, perhaps tame him, or even to kill him in the sense of doing away with the need to believe in him. He may, if he is religious, try to fool God into thinking he is wise or spiritual. Whatever his goal, God catches him in his own trick. Perhaps God exposes him publicly for his hypocrisy or his nonsensical reasoning. Perhaps God waits until the individual appears before him for judgment. Either way, he will be caught and will not be able to fool God with his eloquence.
Furthermore, The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile. We humans listen to the eloquence of gifted individuals and are moved by what seems to be great wisdom. St. Augustine spoke of his own love for eloquence and his various pursuits after what he thought to be real wisdom because of the manner in which some teaching might be presented. God is never taken in. He knows from the beginning where a train of thought will end, and that it will always end in futility when it lacks his truth.
Lesson number one, then, for the Corinth saints is not to get caught up in worldly wisdom. Don’t be deceived by what in truth is foolishness. Lesson number two has to do with boasting in men: 21 So let no one boast in men.
That is what they have been doing. Some boast in Paul, some in Apollos and some in Peter, as though these men were competitors trying to build up their own followings. Paul has already admonished the Corinthians for creating false divisions. Christ alone died for their sins and is Lord. Paul and the others are only servants. He makes the same point here with a slightly different angle. Whereas he had presented himself and Apollos as servants of the Lord, now he emphasizes that they are serving the Corinth saints. Indeed, he carries the concept of service to the church to much greater depth.
For all things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.
We can understand easily enough Paul presenting himself and the other church leaders as servants of the church. The believers were seeing themselves as loyal followers of their leaders, in a sense being servants of the leaders. “No, you’ve got it backwards,” Paul is saying. “You don’t follow us in the sense of being our servants. We are put in our positions to serve you. We belong to you, not you to us. Each of us apostles and elders are called to service to meet your needs.”
To argue who you belong to or follow is like an aristocratic family arguing over which of their servants they belong to. The father declares that he belongs to Marcus the steward of the house; the mother protests that she follows Lydia, her handservant; the children contend that Rufus is the one who has their loyalty. Meanwhile, the servants are scratching their heads, because such talk is nonsense. They belong the family, not the family to them.
Having said this, it seems like Paul gets carried away. He goes much further than to say, “We leaders are your humble servants.” Everything belongs to them. Everything! The world, life, death, the present, and the future. Paul thinks big! Now what is he talking about? Should we produce a new line of bumper stickers: “Everything belongs to me”?
Let’s clarify first who the “you” entails. He is speaking to the Corinth Church, the whole body. As he said in verse 16, “you” – all the believers – make up the one temple. His concern is that this unity is breaking into divisions defined by who people claim they belong to. He reminds them then that their leaders are actually servants serving them. How? By serving the whole body or temple. Paul does not teach his little following, Apollos his, and Peter yet another. They serve the whole congregation, the whole church. It is for the whole church, then, that Paul is making this claim of ownership.
Next, he is putting into perspective from God’s purpose how the whole system operates. From man’s perspective, the little church is but a small part of a far greater cosmic drama. We play our tiny role in serving the world as it travels on its journey. Paul wants us to rethink this perspective. We, i.e. the church, are being served by everything else. By the church, Paul has in mind The Church, the universal church of Christ. The little Corinth Church is part of this greater church. Anyhow, God is working all things to serve his Church – the world, all that goes on in life and even the presence and power of death – these things under God’s control are serving to build his Church. The present circumstances and the future events to come only end up serving God’s purposes for his people. You probably are thinking of another verse: And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).
Paul then raises their vision to the greater context: you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. Everything is theirs because they are Christ’s. They are his Church for whom he died, of whom he is now the Head. And then Christ belongs to God. God the Son possesses all things that he might gather in all whom God the Father has given him and then sanctify them to be his holy Bride. And on that final day, he will present the redeemed Church to his Father. Everything that God the Son does – especially in his work of salvation – he does in obedience to the will of God the Father.
Lessons
Here are two lessons for us to consider from this passage. First, a question: Is it wrong to want to be taken seriously by the world? Is it prideful or misguided to prize the intellect? Paul is very clear that God’s wisdom is regarded as foolishness and that it is a grave mistake to follow the so-called wisdom of the world. Is it wrong, then, to take part in the world’s “system” of wisdom?
This is a practical question. Should Christians be attending the University of Florida? Perhaps one could make a case for studying courses to earn a profession in business or the sciences, but can one justify studying philosophy, psychology, or sociology from secular professors? Isn’t that an effort to become wise “in this age”? For that matter, can one justify studying these courses even in Christian schools since much of the form and content come from secular sources? Aren’t these efforts by Christian schools really an attempt to be considered wise by their secular counterparts? Or let’s bring the question closer to home. Our church supports an entity called The Christian Study Center. The center desires to enter the on-going academic “conversation,” representing a biblical perspective with “intellectual credibility.” If the biblical perspective is foolishness to the world, isn’t this desire in conflict with the church’s mission? Should we be giving support to this work?
Certainly, this text ought to serve as warning to Christians who operate within the academic community not to be seduced by its form of pleasure. Just as Christians can be seduced by pleasures such as drink, sex, and money, so they can be by other temptations. For those who are intellectually bright, ideas can be intoxicating in themselves. That is not necessarily bad, but the common progression, or rather, digression is that such persons become caught up in the pleasures of being thought wise. I assure you, that the love for being known as wise is as strong, if not stronger, a motivation for academic pursuit as the slogan that is held up, “the pursuit of truth.”
Having said that, it is a critical error to divorce the gospel from the intellect. God, after all, is the God of truth. Jesus proclaimed himself as the Truth. It is correct that we cannot by our own intellect arrive at the gospel, but that is because of the limitations of our minds (as well as the corruption of sin). It is not because the gospel is irrational. God outwits man’s wisdom by God’s true wisdom. His wisdom does not contradict reason.
Furthermore, what God has given us, we ought to use to the best of our ability. He has given us minds and the ability to think rationally, one of the attributes which we like to think separates us from the rest of his creatures and marks us as being made in his image. Therefore, if you are able to comprehend and communicate complex concepts, then by all means do it and enjoy it. Just as a Christian tradesman or artist ought to develop his skill as much as possible and enjoy the skill given him, so the intellectual ought to do with his mind. But take pleasure in pleasing God; take pleasure in serving him; and always keep in perspective that your wisdom comes from him.
But again, what about being intellectually credible to the secular culture? If you are in the academic community, I think you want your colleagues to say this of you, “He’s got a good mind; it’s a shame he is so foolish about religion.” They ought to be befuddled that you have sophisticated insight in so many areas, and yet you are so simplistic about Jesus dying for your sins. They should be having trouble fitting your obvious respect for disciplined reasoning in with your equally obvious “narrow-mindedness” about religion. Most of all, they should be taken aback that one who ought to be antagonistic towards them, treats them with respect and even love.
The desire to present a biblical perspective in an “intellectually credible” manner is appropriate when the desire is to use the minds he has given us to the fullest to both understand him and be witnesses for him. And it is appropriate when done from the command to love one’s neighbors, desiring to treat them with respect and take them seriously.
The second lesson is this: truly God’s foolishness is far greater than our wisdom. Think again of the Corinth Christians’ desire. They were looking about them and wishing they would be taken notice of by the world. “Hey, we are wise too!” They were such a small entity in a great city; an even smaller entity in a greater empire; a mere speck in the perspective of history. Where could they find their value? Didn’t they need special gifts to be taken notice of? Didn’t they need to be considered wise? They were like royal children who were yet unaware of their special position. They see the many servants bustling about in their fine uniforms, thinking that they must be men and women of high estate. They see horses pulling large carts of supplies and merchandise, impressed with such wealth that the deliverers must possess. If only they, the children, could be like all the others whom they see. All the while they do not understand that everyone they see are serving them; that all the activity around them which impresses them so if for their welfare. And that is true because they belong to the great king.
Brothers and sisters, we belong to the great king Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul wants us to have wisdom to understand what this means. What he wrote to the Ephesians, he wanted the Corinthians and all Christians to understand. Here is his prayer for all the saints of God:
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all (Ephesians 1:17-23).
It happens again and again. We desire something we see in the world thinking that it must be more wonderful than what we possess. And very often someone, or we ourselves, will admonish us for having too great a desire for our happiness and benefit. Our problem is not that we want too much, but too little; our problem is not that we have visions too great, but too small.
As we are praying that God will make us healthier and better looking; as we are praying that he will make us seem more important to others, those such as Paul with real insight are praying that our eyes be opened to the riches that are ours now in Jesus Christ. They are praying that we will see the glory that belongs to the church; that we will be astonished by the wondrous power by which our Lord, who is the Head of the Church, is bringing all things under subjection for our good. We are not just a speck in history being swept along. History is moving towards the age to come when Christ returns to consummate his kingdom and receive us into glory. All things are yours! The world is yours, created to prepare you for God’s kingdom. Life is yours, to prepare you for the eternal life of Christ. Death is yours, your servant to prepare and deliver you into God’s hands. The present is yours, to experience now the riches of Christ. And the future is yours to lead you ever closer to the hope of your inheritance in Christ. All things are yours because you belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God. To God be glory forever!
