The situation couldn’t have been more disturbing.  Church members were incredibly blessed with an array of spiritual gifts, a perfect location for outreach, and worshipped in a major sports town.  Money was no object either, as the port and geography kept visitors coming and the local economy booming.  So key was their city that the military set up defensive positions on the cliffs.  Although all these factors weighed in as advantages, they also were negative factors why the church couldn’t quite break free from the skeletons in its closet and ties to the present.  So the Corinthian congregation had major ups and downs that for 2,000 years marked it as one of the most immature and carnal congregations Paul founded

In opening his first letter to them, Paul talks about the divisions among them (1:10-17), following various leaders, including Christ.  That these were not the most “spiritual” group should be obvious: everyone was supposed to be following Christ!  To choose him as their leader among leaders, causing division in his name and not a lesser name, only shows their greater immaturity and probable insecurity.

Culminating this section with a segue to a legitimate division among people in the world, he says, “For Christ sen[t] me…to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.”  From here he addresses two strands of reality, namely, wisdom and power, and linked them to two groups respectively: Greeks and Jews.

Jews had their initial separation from the world when God chose their father Abraham in Genesis 12:1.  God called him away from his “country…people…and father’s household.”  In short, separate yourself from all that is worldly, all that is familiar, and follow me and my ways.  This would be prophetic of his call to Abraham’s descendants later.  That call came in Exodus 19: “Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession.  Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (vs. 5-6a). While ethnocentrism is ugly in all its forms and exists in all people groups, anti-Semitism is in a class by itself because of what their people-of-God status suggests: a rejection of God’s choice and ways.  This closeness to God explains Jewish penchant for “power” (1 Cor. 1:17) and “demand[ing] miraculous signs” (v. 22).

On the other hand, Greeks, representing the “best” the Gentiles had to offer, exulted in wisdom, human and earthly to be exact.  Think Plato…Socrates…and Aristotle.  While they were no doubt deep thinkers, their insights and “discoveries” were never a match for “the foolishness of God” (v. 25).

In the next verse of Corinthians Paul wrote, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”  He classifies the entire world into two groups: “those who are perishing” and “us who are being saved.”  All of history is a tale of those going down and those going up.  Those going down may not do so dramatically; they might not have the big crash and burn.  They might simply bottom out wisdom-wise and die, and then have their crash and burn.  We on the other track may not have a silky smooth ride, but it is still “upwardly mobile.”  This is linked to our sanctification (or should be) and likewise linked to the wisdom we gain (or should be).

The Bible gives no precise biblical definition of wisdom.  It is first used to describe those making the components for the Tabernacle and the priests in Exodus.  There it means the knowledge and skill to make things as God wanted.  Proverbs is the book of wisdom and the man with the greatest wisdom — Solomon — wrote it.  The word is frequently linked with understanding, insight and counsel, but it is more than all three.  Perhaps the best glimpse of wisdom is in James 3: “But the wisdom that comes down from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere” (v. 17).  This is really telling, because these descriptions require wisdom to be moral, personal and linked to God’s character.  Who else but Jesus “comes down from heaven” (John 6:33, Eph. 4:9-10)?  There is a right kind of wisdom and a wrong kind of wisdom (v. 15).  Wisdom, that proven-by-experience kind of knowledge of and obedience to God’s will, is to be transforming us on our way up.

Proverbs 4:7 says “Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom.”  Since Jesus is wisdom personified and since he came down to earth, it is available to all his people (James 1:5).  How much are you getting?