Two wisdoms confront each other in First Corinthians: the “wisdom” of the world and the Wisdom of God. The one constitutes the basic problem at Corinth, the problem underlying all the problems. The other wisdom is God’s answer to the false wisdom so apparent at Corinth.

The “wisdom” of the world may best be defined as self-centeredness: self-love, self-trust, and self-assertion. It comes to expression in terms of pride, jealousy, envy, the will to rule, lust, and the like. At the surface-level of daily conduct in Corinth, the “wisdom” appeared in terms of church factions, fornication, lawsuits, insistence upon “rights,” personal prejudices imposed upon others, self-display through speaking in tongues, and like egocentricities.

Paul presents the Cross of Christ as the Wisdom of God. The self-denial and self-giving manifested in the Cross was to man’s pseudo-wisdom but foolishness and weakness. To Paul the Cross is God’s power and God’s wisdom. In sharpest antithesis Paul sees the pseudo-wisdom, the egocentricity at Corinth, set over against the Wisdom of the Cross.

Although Paul does not explicitly identify love (agape) with the Wisdom of God, they stand in close relation to one another. Chapter 13 is thus an integral and indispensable part of First Corinthians, not merely a poem inserted as an afterthought. Agape is the disposition to relate oneself to another for his ultimate good, regardless of cost to the one who loves. Agape is of God and it came to its most forceful expression in the Cross of Christ. In First Corinthians, Paul sets this “higher way” over against the self-assertions of men so eager to press their claims upon others and so unwilling to answer to the claims of God and the claims of their brethren upon themselves.

In First Corinthians Paul with an amazing measure of patience considered one by one the many and varied problems at Corinth: divisions in the church over leaders, court litigation as brother sued brother in pagan courts, fornication, attempts to impose personal scruples about food upon others, proud flaunting of community customs in the name of “freedom” and “rights,” exclusion of brothers even at the Lord’s table, pride and confusion over tongues. But even as he patiently counseled Corinthians on matters so insignificant in themselves, as where one was to do his marketing for meat, Paul’s real concern seemed to be with the underlying evil and the underlying principle of any meaningful answer. Behind all their surface problems was one problem: the “wisdom” of the world. Behind the solution to any problem at Corinth he looked to the Wisdom of God.

Thus, in First Corinthians may be seen its underlying motif: God’s Wisdom over against the “wisdom” of the world, judging it and offering true answer to the foolish and futile strivings of egocentric man. This is not to say that the terms themselves, i.e., the “wisdom” of the world and the Wisdom of God, are carried throughout the epistle; this obviously is not the case. Neither is it suggested that Paul consciously and deliberately outlined the epistle with this antithesis in view; that would be to impose upon the epistle a rigid structure not actually found. It is to suggest, however, that this motif does run through most of the epistle. Paul dealt with numerous surface problems, but his basic concern was with the underlying problem. He offered much advice for daily conduct, but chiefly he pointed his readers to the way or Agape which underlies the Cross. Whatever merit there may be in this approach to the epistle may be tested by closer analysis of the epistle itself. To this we now turn.

 

Divisions at Corinth
1:10-4:21

Following an elaborate and somewhat warm greeting, Paul plunged abruptly into the problems at Corinth. In 1:10 he made explicit reference to the divisions (schisms) in the church. The seriousness of this condition of estrangement is to be seen against the background of the Christians’ calling of God into the fellowship (koinonia) of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord (v. 9). Called to be a fellowship of persons in Christ, they were proving to be a quarreling group of schismatics. Factions had formed around Paul, Apollos, and Cephas; and possibly a fourth party distinguished itself from the others by some proud claim to being the (only) people of Christ.

The force of the Greek text in 1:12 is difficult to preserve in translation. In the Greek text the emphasis falls upon the first person pronoun “I” (ego). The people are described as saying: “I am of Paul, I of Apollos, I of Cephas, I of Christ.” It was a matter of “I . . . I . . . I . . . I,” and therein was the underlying problem. In Greek it is “ego … ego … ego… ego,” and this points up the egocentricity giving rise not only to divisions but to all the problems at Corinth. Two tragic results (1:13) were the dismemberment of Christ (by the dismemberment of the church, the body of Christ) and the virtual deification of men (giving to Paul, Apollos, and Cephas the place which belongs to Christ alone). Behind these results was the egocentricity of men who projected themselves and their selfish interests in terms of heroes to whom they pretended to belong.

In 1:18-31 Paul is explicit in his contrast between the “wisdom” of the world and the Wisdom of God. Man’s “wisdom” is the “wisdom of words” (1:17), possibly the pride of rhetoric as to form and philosophical proof as to content.[ref]See Johannes Weiss, Die erste Korintherbrief, en loc. This “wisdom of words” is not to be confused with the “word of wisdom.” The Cross of Christ is foolishness to those who are perishing. It does not make sense to the egocentric to relinquish a “right” or to yield an “advantage.” To have the power to forge ahead, to triumph over the other, or to distinguish oneself is to the “World” true wisdom. The World finds wisdom and power in self-love, self-trust, and self-assertion. To it the Cross with its self-denial and self-giving is but folly and weakness. God’s wisdom, however, is found precisely where the World’s wisdom would least expect it. God has purposed to save them who trust through “the foolishness of the thing preached,” i.e., the kerygma (1:21). The kerygma is concerned with the almost incredible event in which the Christ gave and found his own life: Christ crucified, God’s power, and God’s wisdom. For the World (i. e., man seeking to live apart from God), the Cross will always have foolishness (moria) at its heart. The Cross cannot be made respectable to the World’s wisdom. To those who trust, it is wisdom and power. In it one learns that he who is willing to lose his life finds it.

 

Pride over Incest
5:1-13

The term “wisdom of the world” does not occur in chapter 5, but the idea does. Fornication was not only practiced in the Christian community; it was tolerated. Not only was it tolerated, but it became for them a matter of pride. Instead of being humiliated, they were “puffed up” (5:2) or swollen with pride. To make it worse, if possible, the pride was over a case of incest, one of them living with his father’s wife, presumably his step-mother (5:1). Only self-love, self-trust, and self-assertion could produce such sorry pride over such sorry conduct. This was another evidence of the “wisdom” of the world.

Paul is not explicit as to how the Corinthian Christians could react with pride rather than shame over this case of fornication in the church. Possibly they had been affected by the strange doctrine that the “spiritual” were above sin, and that what for the ordinary man was sin was for them a mark of virtue. The “spiritual” may have so rationalized their practice as to give an entirely different value to the bodily act. There were “Libertines” or “Antinomians” who made a sharp distinction between “flesh” and “spirit” but who held that for the “Spiritual” there was no sin. This pseudo-wisdom probably served them as justification for their egocentric practice: high thinking and low living!

Paul’s injunction “to deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of Jesus Christ” (5:5) and to “put away the wicked man from among you” (5:13b) may seem harsh, but it was in truth love expressing its true wisdom. Only by “death” may life come. The Corinthians’ self-defense of an ugly act was but the world’s “wisdom” leading to death. God’s Wisdom demanded the death to self through which would come life.

 

Lawsuits among Brothers
6:1-11

In this section there is no explicit reference to the world’s “wisdom” and God’s Wisdom, although the Corinthians are chided about not having among themselves one wise man able to arbitrate in their quarrels. But the basic indictment here as elsewhere is that they were self-centered. It was an utter lack in them that they had lawsuits with one another (6:7). They were determined to protect their own rights or to gain for themselves even if it meant defrauding a brother (6:8). Paul, as a minimum, urged that they avoid the unfavorable publicity resulting from their suing one another in pagan courts. But his chief concern was that they follow the higher law of relinquishing personal rights by taking wrong (6:7). This was the wisdom behind the Cross of Christ, where he “took wrong.” Corinthians were following the world’s pseudo-wisdom of self-love, self-trust, and self-assertion. Only the Wisdom of the Cross could lead to their taking wrong. Their wisdom said “Prosecute!” The Wisdom of the Cross said, “Take wrong.”

 

For Me or for Christ
6:12-20

Some at Corinth apparently tried to justify their carnal indulgence on the grounds that they were free and that natural impulse required satisfaction. “All things are lawful for me” (6:12) and “meats for the belly, and the belly for meats” (6:13) probably represented the Corinthians’ defense for their action. Thus they reduced liberty to license and life to the following out of biological instinct. Most serious of all, however, was the “for me” approach to life (6:12). Over against this “wisdom” of the world, Paul placed another Wisdom. The body is “for the Lord” (6:13); they are members of Christ (6:15). Corinthians are reminded that they do not belong to themselves but to Christ (6:19 f.). The crux of the whole matter is that they were trying to live by the law of self, by what is “good for me.” The irony of it is that this self-love is self-destruction. Not only does this pseudo-wisdom lead to destruction, but it in itself reflects destruction already accomplished.

Again, Paul confronted one wisdom with another. The true answer to fornication or other indulgence was the Wisdom of the Cross by which man’s “for me” is exchanged for another law: “for Christ.”

 

Right and Rights
8:1-10:33

Knowledge puffs one up but love builds up. This Paul stressed for Christians determined to claim their personal “rights.” The right to eat meats from animals sacrificed to idols was insisted upon to the hurt of many. Others damaged fellowship by seeking to impose upon their brethren their scruples against meat. Both groups were egocentric in insisting upon their way. Paul sought to point both groups to the higher way of the love which will relinquish rights where the good of the other is served.

Paul found no evil in the eating of meats as such. He did protest the selfishness of those who insisted upon their right to eat, whatever the effect upon others. Some were proud of their “knowledge” and apparently held in contempt their “benighted brethren” who thought it wrong to eat the meat. Some of the “weak” were emboldened to eat even though they thought it wrong. In thus violating their conscience, their moral structure was damaged. On their part, the “weak” betrayed the same egocentricity as the “strong” as they sought to impose their scruples upon the community. Both were thus governed by the world’s false wisdom.

Paul proclaimed the higher law of the love that relinquishes “rights” for right. He would relinquish the right to eat meat if thereby his brother was served (8:13). He would forego the right to marriage if this freed him for a larger service (9:5). He would forego the right to financial support if he could thereby give a stronger witness (9:6). The Christian was to be governed by the law of service and not that of expediency for self (10:23). For Paul, faith determined his own freedom, but love determined his relation to the other.

 

The Lord’s Supper
11:17-34

Paul saw the Lord’s Supper not only as a remembrance of Jesus (11:24 f.) and as a hope for his coming (11:26), but he saw it as a fellowship of persons in Christ (10:16 ff.). This fellowship (koinonia), however, was not being realized at Corinth. What they observed was not truly the Lord’s Supper (11:20), for they did not in it discern the Lord’s body (11:29). That is, by not waiting for one another (11:33) they denied a · meaning essential to the Supper. Christ identified himself with his people, but as some denied others they denied him. It was a brazen self-centeredness which prompted some to arrive early, eat and drink to excess, thus exclude from their fellowship others of the church, and yet try to call this the Lord’s Supper.

Paul’s whole discussion of the Lord’s Supper grew out of the failure to duly acknowledge the church as the Body of Christ. His concern was that they “wait one for another” (11:33) and that they discern the body (11:29), i.e., that they see their brethren as the body of Christ. By their worldly wisdom they proudly asserted themselves over and against their brethren. Paul would have them lose themselves in the larger body of Christ.

The More Excellent Way
12:1-14:40

The love chapter (13) is an integral and essential part of First Corinthians. It is not a mere insert. Whatever may be said for the thesis that chapter 13 represents a poem older than the letter, its presence here is of utmost importance to the whole epistle. Here Paul sets love (agape) over against the egocentricity which expresses itself in self-love, self-trust, self-assertion. In the immediate context, chapters 12-14, Paul is chiefly concerned to oppose the pride over spiritual gifts, especially the pride over glossalalia, or speaking in tongues.

Chapter 12 is devoted chiefly to the concept of the church as the body of Christ. Variety and unity are basic marks of a body. So the church is a fellowship of persons in Christ. The members of the body are many, yet they together are one body. So is Christ one body (12:12). This basic truth was being lost at Corinth as each sought to magnify himself above the others. When they came together each thrust himself forward with his psalm or teaching or revelation or “tongue” or interpretation (14:26). Again it was the sad story of “I … I … I … I.”

Especially did egocentric interest come to expression in glossalalia. Paul did not set aside as necessarily false their “speaking in tongues,” although he did hold that at best the value of this practice was small. What they proudly displayed as a mark of excellence, he classed with the least of gifts. He pointed the Corinthians to the spiritual gifts concerned with the edifying of the church (14:12). They sought to speak in tongues in order to be admired or envied. This self-seeking he rebuked as he stressed concern for the whole body of Christ and its edification.

It is against this immediate background, but also against the larger background of the whole epistle, that Paul wrote his classic chapter on love, the more excellent way.

Love gives meaning to all else; love seeks not its own good; love endures as an ultimate. Paul could so describe love because love is of God. This disposition in man reflects the new and higher way which has come down from God, who is love.

Paul’s word in Greek is agape. This word describes something far more than is captured in English by “charity” or “love.” In English, charity is too narrow, whereas love is too broad and thin. Much that is termed love today better represents the Greek word eros than it does agape. Eros is not a New Testament word. For the Greeks it stood for a self-centered “love.” Plato (Symposium, 203) explained its meaning by mythological treatment. He said that the mother of Eros was Penia and the father was Poros. In Greek, Penia means proverty, need, or want. Poros stands for way or means. Thus, Eros was the child of desire and means. In other words, it represented the disposition in man to satisfy his desires through his own efforts or resources. Eros need not be sensual. It could be “heavenly,” i.e., the desire for the higher values, or it could be “earthly.” But whether its concern was for higher or lower values, it was always self-centered, self-trusting, self-seeking. It is acquisitive, not creative. It seeks to claim for self what it thinks to be good for self.

Agape stands for the opposition to eros. John wrote, “God is agape” (1 John 4:8). Agape is self…denying, self-giving. It seeks the other’s good. It is creative, seeking to bring about value where it was not before. It does not count the cost to self. Although Paul does not term this the Wisdom of God, it does stand in closest relationship to that which gives redemptive value to the Cross of Christ (cf. John 3:16).

The “wisdom” of the world is judged and condemned by the Wisdom of God. His love became supremely redemptive in the Cross of Christ. Proud, quarreling, self-seeking Corinthians were called back to the Cross, back to the Agape of God.

 

Proud Perfectionists
15:1-58

Chapter 15 is devoted to the Resurrection: the fact, the importance, the credibility, and to some extent, the nature of it. Karl Barth probably is correct in saying that Paul was not so much concerned to prove the fact of the resurrection of Jesus as to insist that it is the basis of Christian faith. The whole gospel was to him bound up with it.

At Corinth there were those who either denied the resurrection or gave to it a meaning unacceptable to Paul. One theory is that there were those at Corinth who proudly claimed that they were already perfect and that they needed no future resurrection for their completion. Those who according to 5:1-13 so rationalized incest as to proudly boast where they should have been humiliated also may have scoffed at the idea that they needed a resurrection. Such “resurrection” as they recognized, they may have held to be strictly “spiritual” and already experienced. A literal resurrection may have been for them not impossible but unnecessary and undesirable. Paul insisted upon the resurrection of Jesus and that of the saints as bodily. There is really a redundancy in speaking of a “bodily resurrection,” for the term resurrection implies body or person. The Greek idea of immortality has to do with Greek “souls”; but the biblical doctrine of resurrection has to do with bodies, however changed they may become in being raised.

It was a part of the “wisdom” of the world to scoff at true resurrection and to boast of a “spiritual” resurrection or “perfection” already attained. Whether confronted at Corinth with honest doubt or with proud perfectionist claims, Paul boldly answered in terms of a simple faith in the resurrection of persons, not just immortality of souls, based upon what to him was the fact of the resurrection of Jesus.

 

Conclusion

Oversimplification is a pitfall which endangers the exegete. The mania to gather up all loose ends and make everything fit together is a hard one to escape. In seeking a “motif” for First Corinthians one may overdo his thesis. This is frankly confessed. On the other hand, this writer is convinced that the study of this epistle is illumined by the recognition of one basic answer underlying all the answers. At Corinth two wisdoms met: the world’s “wisdom” and God’s Wisdom. The love that triumphed in the Cross and in the Resurrection is the true Wisdom which alone could conquer at Corinth. It is yet God’s power and God’s wisdom.