God Hath Chosen the Weak Things

Corinth was impressed by impressive people, and that is the whole problem in the letter.

The church there was splitting into parties. Paul says so at the front of the letter, and he names his source.

For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.1 Corinthians 1:11-12, King James Version

Four factions, each attached to a name. And underneath the factions there is a taste: they were sorting themselves by which teacher was most impressive, and the currency in that city was wisdom and eloquence.

So Paul spends the first two chapters taking the currency apart. And in the middle of it he does something startling. He tells them to look around the room.

For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called1 Corinthians 1:26, King James Version

Ye see your calling. Look at yourselves. Look at who is actually here.

And notice how careful he is. He does not say no wise, no mighty, no noble. He says not many, which is honest, because Corinth had a few: a synagogue ruler, a city treasurer, people with houses big enough to host a church.

Not many. That is a survey result, delivered to the people who were the survey.

The fourth item is the strange one

Now the list, and it comes in four items, and the fourth one is unlike anything else Paul writes.

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are1 Corinthians 1:27-28, King James Version

One: the foolish things.

Two: the weak things.

Three: base things, and things which are despised. Base here means low born, of no family, and despised means treated as nothing by other people.

Four: things which are not.

Stop on the fourth. Not the weak things, not the low things. The things that are not. The non-existent. He runs out of categories of lowness and reaches past the bottom of the scale into a category that does not have members.

That is not modesty. That is a man building a list downward on purpose until it goes off the end.

You are not an unlikely choice, you are the stated pattern. 1 Corinthians 1:27-28 uses the word chosen three times about the bottom of the list, and it is the Holy Spirit who keeps that verb attached where Paul put it.

Look at the verb. Chosen. Three times in two verses.

That is not a word about making do. A choice is deliberate, considered, and made in preference to something else. Paul is not saying God accepted what was left. He is saying there was a selection and this is who was selected.

You have been selected rather than accepted, and the word appears three times in two lines. The written word says hath chosen about the foolish, the weak, and the base and despised, and the same Spirit who repeated it is the reason nobody has to read this as a consolation.

And then the reason, which is the only reason given.

That no flesh should glory in his presence.1 Corinthians 1:29, King James Version

The purpose is not to make anybody feel better. The purpose is that nobody should be able to take credit in front of God.

Which means the selection was never a comment on your quality either way. It was a decision about where the credit would end up.

You have been chosen for a reason that has nothing at all to do with your suitability. 1 Corinthians 1:29 gives the purpose as glory and never as merit, and it is His Spirit who is the reason a person can stop auditioning.

Now, I want to name something honestly, because this passage gets used to flatter people who are doing fine.

If somebody said that to you, then somebody said it. It came from a person, or a room, or an accumulation of not being asked. And Paul is not writing to correct your self-image. He is writing to a church that had a ranking system in it, and he is dismantling the ranking system rather than encouraging the people at the bottom of it.

He does not tell them to feel better about their position. He tells them the position is the pattern.

You have been handed a rearrangement of the whole scale rather than a better place on it. 1 Corinthians 1:29 says the purpose was that no flesh should glory, which takes the ladder away rather than moving anybody up it, and it is the Holy Spirit who keeps that from being read as a promotion.