I.
Notice Paul’s direction to the the recipients of his letter,

“Consider your own call …” (1 Corinthians 1:26)

Couple that with his earlier statement, “… to those who are called…” (1 Corinthians 1:24), I take it that Paul considered these folk called by God to life “in Christ Jesus.” (1 Corinthians 1:30)

They are already on a pathway in the Kingdom of God.

How do you see Paul describing their character and life?

II.
1 Corinthians 1:18-31 (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition)

For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scholar? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of the proclamation, to save those who believe. or Jews ask for signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to abolish things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. In contrast, God is why you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

III.
Notice the contrasts Paul sets before us in this passage? Contrasts like wise/foolish, strong/weak.

Do you think he stresses a contrast between the wise and foolish too much? Not enough? Why do you think he calls attention to this contrast?

Sometimes I have to wonder where I am on the continuum of foolish to wise.

Do you ever wonder about such things?

charles
{ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est}