1 Corinthians 1

1 Corinthians 1:1

1 Cor. 1:1. “Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ, through the will of God.” St. Paul, when he calls himself an apostle, does commonly add some such clause as this, “through the will of God;” so 2 Corinthians 1:1, “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God;” and the very same words, Ephesians 1:1 and Colossians 1:1 and 2 Timothy 1:1 and 1 Timothy 1:1. “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior, and Lord Jesus Christ;” and Romans 1:1, “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.” Verse 5. “By whom we have received grace and apostleship;” which was because he continually carried a deep sense of his unworthiness to be an apostle, who before was so great a sinner. And how it was not owing to anything in him that he was promoted to such dignity, but only to the sovereign will and pleasure and free grace of God, which, of a persecutor of the church, made him an apostle in the church. Therefore, when he takes the honor of the name of an apostle, he ascribes it to God’s sovereign pleasure and grace. The cause of it is a sense of what he expresses in 1 Corinthians 15:9; 1 Corinthians 15:10, “For I am the least of the apostles, and am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But, by the grace of God, I am what I am;” and Ephesians 3:8 . “Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.”

1 Cor. 1:24

1 Corinthians 1:24

1 Cor. 1:24. “But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” The power of God answers to a sign or miracle, which the Jews sought after; and the wisdom of God, to the wisdom which the Greeks sought after, mentioned in the last verse but one preceding.

1 Cor. 1:27

1 Corinthians 1:27

1 Cor. 1:27. “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things to confound the things which are mighty.” God, by this method, shows Satan that His understanding and wisdom is of infinitely further reach than his. All Satan’s strife and contrivances is to get the powers and honors and riches and wisdom of the world on his side, and to improve them in his interest. God shows that His wisdom stands in no need of such helps; but He knows how to order the meanest and most despicable means, so and so to contrive things with them as to baffle all the policy of Satan and confound all the strength that he has on his side; as a king would show his superior policy if he should so contrive things as without the trouble of raising armies and fleets, and providing arms and ammunition, or taxing his country and the like, should successfully carry on a war against a powerful enemy with mighty forces, and should baffle and confound them from time to time, though they lay out themselves to the utmost, by some very inconsiderable means and with very little ado.

1 Cor. 2:15-16