Replies

From: 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

The Wisdom of the Cross (Continuation)

[26] For consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to
worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; [27]
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. [28] God chose what is low and des-
pised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are,
[29] so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. [30] He is the
source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteous-
ness and sanctification and redemption; [31] therefore, as it is written, “Let him
who boasts, boast of the Lord.”

*********************************************************************************************
Commentary:

26-29. As in the case of the Apostles—”You did not choose me, but I chose you’.
(Jn 15:16)—it is the Lord who chooses, who gives each Christian his vocation. St
Paul emphasizes that the initiative lies with God by saying three times that it
was God who chose those Corinthians to be Christians, and he did not base his
choice on human criteria. Human wisdom, power, nobility, these were not what
brought them to the faith—nor the inspirations which God later gives. “God is no
respecter of persons (cf. 2 Chron 19:7; Rom 2:1; Eph 6:9; Col 3:25; etc.)”, St. J.
Escriva reminds us. “When he invites a soul to live a life fully in accordance with
the faith, he does not set store by merits of fortune, nobility, blood or learning.
God’s call precedes all merits [...]. Vocation comes first. God loves us before we
even know how to go toward him, and he places in us the love with which we can
respond to his call” (”Christ Is Passing By”, 33).

Thus, God chooses whomever he wants to, and these first Christians — uneduca-
ted, unimportant, even despised people, in the world’s eyes—will be what he uses
to spread his Church and convert the wise, the strong and the “important”: this
disproportion between resources and results will make it quite clear that God is
responsible for the increase.

However, this does not mean that none of the first Christians was educated or in-
fluential, humanly speaking. The Acts of the Apostles, for example, tell us about
early converts who were out of the ordinary—a minister of the court of the Kan-
dake of Ethiopia; a centurion, Cornelius; Apollos; Dionysius the Areopagite; etc.
“It would appear that worldly excellence is not godly unless God uses it for his
honor. And therefore, although at the beginning they were indeed few, later God
chose many humanly outstanding people for the ministry of preaching. Hence
the gloss which says, ‘If the fisherman had not faithfully led the way, the orator
would not have humbly followed’” (St Thomas Aquinas, “Commentary on 1 Cor,
ad loc.”).

27. St Paul’s words remind us that supernatural resources are the thing an apos-
tle must rely on. It is true that human resources are necessary, and God counts
on them (cf. 1 Cor 3:5-10); but the task God has commended to Christians ex-
ceeds their abilities and can be carried out only with his help. The Second Vati-
can Council reminded priests of this verse when stressing the need for humility;
and what it says can be useful to all Christians: “The divine task for the fulfillment
of which they have been set apart by the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 13:2) transcends all
human strength and human wisdom; for ‘God chose what is weak in the world to
shame the strong’ (1 Cor 1:27). Therefore the true minister of Christ is conscious
of his own weakness and labors in humility. He tries to discover what is well-
pleasing to God (cf. Eph 5:10) and, bound as it were in the Spirit (cf. Acts 20:22),
he is guided in all things by the will of him who wishes all men to be saved. He is
able to discover and carry out that will in the course of his daily routine by humbly
placing himself at the service of all those who are entrusted to his care by God in
the office that has been committed to him and the variety of events that make up
his life” (”Presbyterorum Ordinis”, 15).

30-31. God’s call makes a person a member of Christ Jesus, through Baptism;
and if a Christian is docile to grace he or she will gradually become so like Christ
as to be able to say with St Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives
in me” (Gal 2:20). This “being in Christ Jesus” enables a person to share in the
wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption which Jesus is for the
Christian.

Jesus Christ indeed is the “wisdom” of God (cf. Col 1:15f; Heb 1:2f), and knowing
him is true wisdom, the highest form of wisdom. He is for us our “righteousness”,
because through the merits obtained by his incarnation, death and resurrection
he has made us truly righteous (= just, holy) in God’s sight He is also the source
of all holiness, which consists in fact in identification with Christ. Through him,
who has become “redemption” for us, we have been redeemed from the slavery of
sin. “How well the Apostle orders his ideas: Good has made us wise by rescuing
us from error; and then he has made us just and holy by giving us his spirit”
(Chrysostom, “Hom. on 1 Cor, 5, ad loc.”).

In view of the complete gratuitousness of God’s choice (vv. 25-28) and the im-
mense benefits it brings with it, the conclusion is obvious: “’Deo omni, gloria. All
glory to God.’ It is an emphatic conclusion of our nothingness. He, Jesus, is every-
thing. We, without him, are worth nothing: nothing. Our vainglory would be just
that: vain glory; it would be sacrilegious robbery. There should be no room for
that ‘I’ anywhere” (St. J. Escriva, “The Way”, 780).

*********************************************************************************************
Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.