What does it mean that God chooses the foolish things to confound the wise (1 Corinthians 1:27)?

Now Paul appeals to the Corinthian brethren themselves to consider the fact of their calling. Certainly it is God Himself who calls His saints: why were there not many wise men, not many mighty, not many noble among them? Can it be that God arbitrarily discriminated against these? No indeed; for at least there were some of these who believed the gospel. But God had seen fit to choose the foolish things of the world in order to confound the wise, weak things to confound the mighty, and things ignoble, despised, and of no account, to render of no value those things that men highly honor. It is not that God condemns intelligence or human ability, but by the preaching of the cross He strikes the death-blow to man's pride and confidence in these things. Some refuse it simply because it injures their pride: they will not come down to admit that God is really greater than themselves.

However, Gideon protested to the Lord that his family was the weakest in Manasseh and that he himself was the least in his father's house (v. 15). Perhaps this was true, but he did not understand that God chooses the foolish things of the world, the weak things, the base things, and things that are despised, to bring to nothing the things that are naturally dominating (1Cor. 1:27-28). God does not choose those who are naturally the most competent in order to do His work, for if he did, we would attribute that person's success to his own ability, and God would not have all the glory.

The preaching of the Cross is foolishness to those that are perishing. Unto us who are being saved it is the power of God, for it saves us from the guilt of sins, the power of sin itself and ere long from the presence of sin in our homegoing. And those who are perishing in rejecting the Cross of Christ were never so numerous as today. To the "Christian Scientist"--the Unitarian--the Destructive Critic-- the new Religionist and others, the preaching of the Cross is foolishness. And the world with all its boasted learning and wisdom did not think of the Gospel and its wonderful plan and power. The nations who boasted of culture and wisdom even in their highest form groped in the dark, and instead of discovering how man can be saved and brought back to God, were dragged down deeper and deeper into sin and despair. And thus God made foolish the wisdom of this world. Therefore the men who today turn their backs upon the Gospel and speak of philosophy, science and wisdom, turn to foolishness once more, which will lead them into the blackness and darkness forever. The preaching of Christ crucified was to the Jews a stumblingblock, and to the Greeks foolishness, because the Jews required a sign and the Greeks sought after wisdom, but the Cross puts human pride and glory into the dust. And what Jews and Greeks rejected and treated as foolishness is the power and wisdom of God. What men considered foolishness, a crucified Christ, is therefore wiser than men, for it gives to the believer what the wisdom of the world cannot supply. And the "weakness of God", which is Christ crucified through weakness, is more powerful than men; man is saved by it. Thus the charge of Jews and Gentiles, that the cross is foolishness, that it is weakness, is repudiated and the foolishness and weakness of man is thereby demonstrated and laid bare.

And that no flesh should glory in His presence, God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things to confound the things which are mighty. He hath chosen the base things, the despised things and the things which are not to bring to naught the things that are. Therefore not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. God in His sovereignty takes up that which is foolish and weak to manifest His power. How fully this is evidenced by experience. And the believer is always in the safe place, if he is in the place of self-abasement, self-effacement and weakness. "Of Him are we in Christ Jesus who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption; that according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." It is all of God, and all in Christ, and nothing of us or in ourselves. Christ is the wisdom of God.

Not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God chose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things, and things despised, and things which are not, to bring to nought things which are. God's object was that no flesh should glory in His presence. For the gospel was the gospel of the cross of Christ, and these were fruits of faith in it. To preach it with wisdom of words would have been to make it of none effect; it was the power of God to salvation. God would destroy the wisdom of the wise and the understanding of the prudent, and, by salvation by the cross, He made foolish the world's wisdom, even as also by the foolishness of preaching He saved those that believed. But herein God's power and wisdom stood out in relief, and no flesh could glory in His presence; glorying could alone be in Him, and joy in what He had provided in the Saviour that had been crucified. How do the power, and wisdom, and grandeur of that which was of God shine out! For the cross of Jesus — measure of man's wickedness, and end of Christ's humiliation — to contain the only salvation of His murderers! And if Christ, the wisdom of God, and the power of God, and the Holy Spirit were to be displayed in God's assembly, we see that those in it had no light or wisdom or power of their own to display or boast in.

(Vv. 26-29). The Apostle has set aside the religious flesh of the Jew, and the intellectual flesh of the Gentile, by presenting the Cross and the preaching of the Cross. Now he sets aside the pride of the flesh by presenting the calling of God. “Ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.” The foolish, the weak, the base, the despised, and things that are not has God chosen to confound the wise and “bring to nought things that are”. Thus it came to pass that a blind beggar confounded the wise Pharisees, and simple fishermen so utterly confounded the wise rulers of Israel that they were compelled to say, “What shall we do?”.

The Corinthians then, who were not weaned from their old admiration of man's wisdom and power and rank, the apostle bids to consider their calling. In the assembly of God before their eyes was the clearest evidence that not many were wise according to flesh, not many powerful, not many highborn. And they could not but know enough by report of Christians in other parts to be satisfied that the same features were true everywhere else. But the apostle goes farther and shows that it is not only a fact among men (ver. 26) but a purpose on God's part. (Ver. 27-29.) He chose the foolish things of the world to put shame on the wise men; He chose the weak things of the world to put shame on the strong things. So clear is His judgment pronounced on what is ever apt to captivate the heart of Christians, for they love to be able to count up the wise and the world's grandeur in their own ranks, as if aught of the sort could add lustre to Christ. Did not God choose the mean things of the world, and the disdained things, the things that are not, that He might bring to nought the things that are, so that no flesh might boast in the sight of God? It is no question of what they or their circumstances seemed, but of what these really were for most when God chose them. Few of the saints had been among the wise, most knew what it was to have been arrested by the gospel from obscurity and of no influence or account among men. If God called such to the fellowship of His Son, to be one with Him now, to reign with Him soon and for ever, if the wise and powerful and nobly born were for the most part left in their possession or pursuit of all which blinded them to the glory of Christ on the one hand and to judgment on the other, whose sin was this? whose grace that? But how unworthy and inconsistent that the Christian should yearn after or glory in flesh and its advantages! Looking within and without, what believer could fail to learn that no flesh should boast before God?

God first allowed man's wisdom to prove itself to the full. But its strivings could never attain to the knowledge of God. God's own wisdom had decreed this could not be. When Paul wrote, and in fact before the cross, the outstanding philosophers of Greece - Socrates, Plato, Aristotle - had proven complete failures in finding the knowledge of the true God, and were mired with the rest of Greece in the worship of many false gods.

Yet now it has pleased God, by the foolishness of the preaching of the cross, to save those who believe. This of course is what men count to be foolishness. It requires no great intellect to understand, but only simplicity of faith in the Son of God. And because of this great wisdom being expressed in terms so simple and clear that a child can understand it, therefore men who pride themselves on their superior wisdom are haughty enough to despise this, and call it foolishness. It is of course not the fact of preaching that is despised, but the subject matter.

But this helpless ignorance of God, which as the judicial effect of human sin and folly glorifies, in one sense, the God who had given men over to their lusts, does not meet the original good pleasure of His will, which was to have a people worthy of Himself. In the sovereignty of His wisdom, evil should work for good. And so he proceeds: "It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." First, let us remember that a godless state is also a lost state. But such has been shown to be the condition of the world. Let it also be well noted that, while men owe their ruin to themselves, salvation is exclusively of God. It pleases Him to save. As to the instrumental means, it is "the foolishness of preaching." To effect the mightiest of works, He employs what to the mind of nature is the most inadequate of means. It is thus that both His wisdom and His power are displayed.

To the wise of this world there is nothing so foolish as the preaching of the cross, in which they are told that the salvation of God for men is in Him whom they crucified. With all its wisdom, the world has not been able to bring to men the knowledge of God. We cannot obtain the knowledge of God from the world's religion, from its philosophy, or from its sciences. We do not find the knowledge of God in the world's writers, in its sages, or in its thinkers. How very true were the words of the blessed Son of God, "O righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee: but I have known Thee" (John 17:25). Only in the Son of God is the knowledge of God to be found, and only in Him is there salvation for any man.

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1:22 that "the Greeks seek after wisdom," but in the cross, in which the wisdom of God is to be seen, they only see foolishness. Nothing can be more foolish to the wise of this world than to tell them that the only way of salvation is faith in the crucified Son of God. Yet it is through the cross that God has procured in Christ blessing for men. The wisdom of God devised the plan that has made salvation available to men by trusting Him who died on the cross for our sins. Man's wisdom, not even the wisdom of a Solomon, could have devised such a plan; when the wise of this world have it brought before them in the Gospel, they account it as foolishness.

Because of this, also, the cross stands as "the great divide" amongst men whenever it is faithfully preached. On the one side of it stand "them that perish," on the other "us which are saved." To which class any individual belongs may be discerned by observing that individual's attitude toward the preaching of the cross. To the one it is but foolishness, for they adhere to the world and its wisdom. To the other it is the power of God, and that to salvation. God saves by the foolishness of the preaching. The point of this remark in verse 21 is not that preaching appears a foolish method — as compared with working, for instance — but that the actual message preached — the word of the cross — is foolishness according to human notions, but is wisdom and power according to God.