📖WEB · 1 Corinthians 1:18
What does 1 Corinthians 1:18 mean?
"For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are dying, but to us who are saved it is the power of God."
— 1 Corinthians 1:18 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
so that no one should say that I had baptized you into my own name.
(I also baptized the household of Stephanas; besides them, I don’t know whether I baptized any other.)
For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Good News—not in wisdom of words, so that the cross of Christ wouldn’t be made void.
For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are dying, but to us who are saved it is the power of God.
For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, I will bring the discernment of the discerning to nothing.”
Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the lawyer of this world? Hasn’t God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
For seeing that in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom didn’t know God, it was God’s good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe.
Explanation
This verse presents a stark contrast between two ways of perceiving the same message: the message of Christ crucified. Paul is saying that the cross of Jesus, when preached and proclaimed, produces two completely different reactions depending on the spiritual condition of the hearer. To those who are perishing, the idea that God's Son would die a criminal's death on a Roman cross seems absurd, weak, and foolish. But to those who are being saved, that same message is nothing less than the very power of God at work.
The context here is essential to understanding the verse. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians to the church in Corinth, a Greek city steeped in philosophical sophistication, rhetorical skill, and social status-seeking. The Corinthian believers were tempted to evaluate spiritual leaders and even the gospel itself by the standards of worldly wisdom and eloquence. Paul addresses this directly in the surrounding verses (1 Corinthians 1:17-25), contrasting human wisdom with God's wisdom, and noting that Jews sought signs while Greeks sought wisdom, but Paul preached "Christ crucified," which was a stumbling block to one group and foolishness to the other. This verse launches that whole argument, setting up the paradox that what looks like weakness and folly to human eyes is actually the means by which God saves people.
Theologically, this verse teaches that the cross is not merely a moral example or a symbol of love in some vague sense—it is the actual mechanism of salvation, and it operates according to a logic that inverts human expectations.
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