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§9 Evaluating by God’s Standards (1 Cor. 3:18–23)

Paul returns to the original concerns he identified and discussed at 1:18–25: the contrast between God’s mysterious saving activity in the cross of Christ and the arrogant activity of the Corinthians that resulted from their erroneous preoccupation with wisdom. Paul calls the behavior of the Corinthians what he perceives it to be, sheer self-deception. Focusing on their own knowledge as a key to their spiritual standing, they avoided involvement with the amazing power of God. Paul calls for the Corinthians to take a proper attitude toward wisdom: in comparison with the saving power of God it is of little value. In order to intensify his argument Paul cites two passages from the LXX as prooftexts. Neither citation is precise, though Paul’s particular renderings of the texts make them fit the situation in Corinth in a more intelligible way: God’s wisdom, not worldly wisdom, is supreme.

Paul continues with a surprising statement. He informs the Corinthians that they do not claim enough. By dividing themselves into cliques or factions they fail to embrace the saving reality that God called into being through the cross of Christ. All that belongs to God is available to the Corinthians as they are faithful followers of Christ. In and through Christ God unifies a redeemed creation, and the Corinthians are called to a new life in that new cosmic unity.

3:18 / The verse opens with an exhortation. The NIV translation, Do not deceive yourselves, is inaccurate in rendering the line with a plural form (“yourselves”). Paul’s remark is singular (“yourself”); it applies to each and perhaps every person, but not to all as a group.

The words that follow make evident the specific issues of self-deception that Paul has in mind in issuing this stern warning, If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age. The matter over which the Corinthians might have been in danger of self-deception or delusion was worldly wisdom. Some of the Corinthians were persuaded that they were sophisticated in terms of wisdom, so that one should not miss the deep irony of Paul’s remark. Paul has had to labor assiduously to bring the Corinthians to their proper Christian senses precisely because some of them have gone off the foundation of the gospel through their misguided concern with wisdom and the spiritual status that came from possessing special wisdom.

Paul offers an ironic, conditional piece of advice: If someone in Corinth thinks he or she is wise, then that person should become a “fool” so that he [or she] may become wise. Paul continues the strong tone of his advice, using the imperative form of the verb to say (lit.), “let him (or her) become foolish, in order that he (or she) may become wise.” The statement stands on its head the value system that Paul opposed in Corinth. Thinking themselves wise, some Corinthians were fools, for their wisdom caused them to scoff at or ignore the wisdom of God that was revealed in the cross of Christ. By embracing the seemingly foolish wisdom of God, they would become fools to the world but wise in the sight of God. Paul has made this point repeatedly in chapters 1–3, but he reiterates it here in rhetorically deliberate summary fashion to call anyone who confided in anything other than the saving power of God and who derived essential self-esteem from anything other than God’s care (seen in the cross) back to an absolute trust in God.

3:19–20 / The initial word, For, indicates that Paul is offering an explanation for the command and advice he gave in verse 18. Although the NIV leaves the word untranslated, “for” reoccurs in 3:19b in the introduction to the first scriptural citation. As it is written literally reads, “For it is written.” Thus, the line For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight is a modified inversion of what Paul said in 1:18a, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.” By inverting the dynamics of the controversy, Paul gives a theological explanation for his insistence that any Corinthian wishing to be wise must first become a fool, and he describes the wisdom of this world from God’s point of view: it is foolishness. Paul’s explanation itself requires supporting arguments (in 3:19b-20) and further explanation (in 3:21–23).

Paul offers a combination of explication, precedent, and proof by citing two passages of Scripture in support of his argument, Job 5:13 and then Psalm 94:11 (93:11 LXX). The citation from Job seems very loosely related to the original text, for the LXX refers to God literally as “the one who takes the wise ones in [their] prudence,” whereas Paul names God as “the one who catches the wise ones in their craftiness.” Paul comes closer to the psalm text in 3:20, simply altering the word “humans” in the psalm to read wise. These passages present vivid images. The verb “catch” in Job comes from the language of hunting, so that Paul’s employment of this particular verse presents a divine irony. As people craftily try to avoid God’s will and work through their involvement with “wisdom,” God uses their very craftiness to capture them; for as they posture themselves before God and humanity as the wise, such persons turn out to be real fools. Given the existence of this kind of foolishness in Corinth, Paul cites the psalm to verify and give weight to what is obvious in his argument, The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile. The introductory formula to this citation is simply stated, and again, showing that Paul’s thoughts are connected to the initial “for,” so that in this citation he is still offering words of explanation.

3:21a / Paul signals that he shifts from explanation to drawing conclusions with the emphatic introductory phrase, So then. His words are cast as a command, saying literally, “Let no one boast in humans!” The NIV captures the basic sense of Paul’s declaration: no more boasting about men! Although the minor shift away from the more literal sense of Paul’s words casts his admonition in an even more impersonal form than he stated the directive, nevertheless one should see that this remark harks back to Paul’s comments in 1:10–12 (echoed in 3:4–5), and it anticipates the explicit denial of the validity of certain Corinthians who claim allegiance to either Paul, Apollos, or Cephas in 3:22. Paul’s criticism is aimed at the formation of factions, but his real critique here is of the tendency in Corinth to engage in boasting. The confidence of the Christian is to be in God alone, in God’s work in the cross of Christ, not in the mere human agents of God or in any form of human wisdom that focuses on something other than Christ crucified.

3:21b–22 / Paul gives the theological rationale for what he said in the lines immediately preceding these verses and in all that he had written previously. That Paul is offering an explanation is clear in the Greek. The statement begins with the word “for,” which the NIV leaves untranslated, although what Paul says in these lines is founded on the grand statement that follows in 3:23.

In one sense Paul’s words are self-evident; he begins, All things are yours. The importance of this declaration is clear from Paul’s literal repetition of the words at the end of 3:22 (without the word “for” in Gk.). The Corinthians have said, “I am of” Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas; but Paul obliterates the reductionistic tendency of such thinking by informing them that all things are theirs. The Corinthians viewed themselves as individuals (“I am of …”), but Paul looks at them in terms of their corporate identity (yours, Gk. plural form). By isolating themselves from one another and thinking about their personal status, the Corinthians have missed the glorious truth of the gospel that Paul makes plain in these verses. The Corinthians had reduced the reality of God’s saving work in Christ to a new personal status, whereas the cosmic salvation God achieved in the cross of Christ carved out a new reality that set the Corinthians into a new pattern of relations wherein they were not isolated, competitive, status-seeking individuals or cliques.

Included in the list of all things that Paul names are Paul, Apollos, Cephas, the world, life, death, the present, and the future. The three persons are those whose names came to Paul’s attention from the controversy in Corinth (1:10–12); but these figures represent any or all humans to whom the Corinthian Christians might be tempted to look for identity and status. These three are but human; they are not God (or Christ). In turn, Paul’s list of the following five items—the world, life, death, the present, and the future—summarizes all things. Paul forms this remarkable list and insists, All things are yours.

3:23 / The bold claim Paul made in the preceding lines is explained from a purely theological vantage point: and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God. Paul did not mean to say that the Corinthians were the lords over everything imaginable; rather, because they belong to Christ and because Christ belongs to God, “all things” belong to them, since all things ultimately belong to God. Only as they are of Christ are they related to “all things” in such a way that they are free from the need to attach themselves to someone or something so that they can find identity and status. The one God of the cosmos acted in the cross of Christ to assert sovereign power over all creation. Paul insists that apart from this action, no knowledge or affiliation grants the saving experience of the power of God. Yet because they belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God, the Corinthians already have the status they foolishly sought through wisdom and special affiliations with other seemingly prominent humans.

At times interpreters have struggled with this verse because it seems to present a subordinationist christology that denies the equality of God and Christ as members of the Trinity. Paul, however, knew nothing about such doctrinal considerations, nor was he trying to make a doctrinal statement that would clarify the relationship of God and Christ. Rather, Paul was speaking in a functional fashion, so that whatever christology one encounters here is best taken soteriologically, not ontologically. God acted through Christ. Christ served God’s will in doing God’s work for the salvation of humanity. So Paul thought and so he spoke. Christ is cast as a mediating figure in Paul’s thought, for the Christians belong to Christ who belongs to God, so that in belonging to Christ the Christians belong to God through Christ.

Job (LXX):	the one who takes the wise ones in [their] prudence
	ho katalambanōn sophous en tē phronēsei
Paul:	the one who catches the wise ones in their craftiness
	ho drassomenos tous sophous en tēi panourgia autōn