1 Corinthians one 18-25 study notes
One reason why Paul does not preach with words of human wisdom is because God has destroyed the wisdom of the world on the cross (1:19), he has made it foolish (1:20), and because the wisdom of the world does not know Christ (1:21). The wisdom of God regards the message of the cross as foolishness (1:18) and it is a stumbling block to the Jews (1:22).
Great contrast produced between God’s wisdom and strength and the world’s wisdom and strength in 1:18-25. See especially v. 25.
In 1:18-25 we enter upon a section that is rich with a contrast between God’s wisdom and strength and the world’s wisdom and strength. Here in this section Paul answers why he preaches how he does and how God’s wisdom and strength rises far above the wisdom and strength of the world. Try as they may to pursue God in any way other than Jesus Christ, they will fail. Christ is the wisdom and power of God. Salvation is found only in Him. This section also explains to us why seemingly so few understand or even care for the message of the cross. We are told it is foolishness and a stumbling block. It also tells us how God saves us, through the foolishness of preaching.
What makes the message of the cross foolishness? My response would be because it engenders everything that the world calls weak and calls it strong. It is a message about a divine, all-powerful, all-knowing, almighty God who sends his son in humility and seemingly great weakness. This is foolishness to the Gentiles and a stumbling block to the Jews. The Jews expected a great powerful Messiah who would come and destroy all of their enemies once and for all. The Gentiles call it foolishness because it just makes no sense, humanly speaking, that God in the flesh could be brutally murdered and buried. What kind of God is that?
God’s power is demonstrated in that through Christ he has destroyed the wisdom of the wise and the intelligence of the intelligent.
The message of the cross values everything this world dislikes. It values humility, servant hood, etc. The catch is we value these things not because they are weak.
1:20 is almost like a challenge that God issues.
Verse 17 ended with Paul saying Christ sent him to preach the gospel – not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. We’re going to get real familiar with this word “wisdom” because by the time we get to 3:20 we will have encountered it 23x. After reading verse 17 one is tempted to ask why? Why Paul don’t you preach with words of human wisdom? What makes human wisdom so empty? With verse 18, Paul answers this question.
Paul does not preach with words of human wisdom, for it is foolishness to those who are perishing. Paul does not want his preaching to be mere human wisdom. What value would that be? The cross of Christ is antithetical to human wisdom. It is absolutely contradictory to human wisdom, so to preach a message full of human wisdom would be empty and without substance. It may win a few popularity votes, but it will not change lives for Jesus Christ.
The Corinthians would seem to be guilty of glorifying human wisdom and exalting in it. Paul would have none of it. He expresses in certain terms that the message of the cross is foolishness. He explains that it is this way to confound the wise and display God’s glory even in his folly and weakness.
Isaiah is writing to a people that are worshipping God with their lips, but are indeed far from God in their hearts. They prided themselves in wisdom but God says he will make this wisdom perish from their midst. It will disappear and vanish from the scene. God promises through the prophecy of Isaiah to act in such a wondrous and powerful way that he will bring the people into such a condition that all confidence in human wisdom would be demonstrated as foolish.
The Corinthians were priding themselves in their leaders great wisdom and by doing such were missing the whole point. As Fee points out, “their boasting in men in the name of wisdom ultimately impacts the nature of the gospel itself” (Fee, 66). The message of the cross is not wisdom, but foolishness. It is not power, but weakness.
Human wisdom is that which seeks to impress with great human understanding and rhetorical skill but without any real substance or spiritual depth to it. Many Corinthians were guilty of zealously following the coattails of church leaders because of their great way with human understanding and rhetorical skill. Paul says his preaching is not filled with such human wisdom and rightly so, because his preaching is a preaching of the cross, which is foolishness to the perishing.
“Each of the paragraphs is predicated on the same reality, namely that the cross is not something to which one may add human wisdom and thereby make it superior; rather, the cross stands in absolute, uncompromising contradiction to human wisdom. The cross is in fact folly to wisdom humanly conceived; but it is God’s folly, folly that is at the same time his wisdom and power” (Fee, 66).
In this section, Paul does not seek to condemn all human wisdom. He is rather putting human wisdom in its place in relation to God and the gospel. Human wisdom is good, divine wisdom is far greater.