Living in the wisdom of the cross: 1 Corinthians 3:18-23

1 Cor 3:18-23 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” 20 and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” 21 So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

When I was a kid, living in my parent’s home, my mom would often tell me to clean my room. I was never a very neat kid and so the command came regularly, often with the instruction to clean every ‘nook and cranny.’ As far as I knew, I had no ‘nook’ in my bedroom, and if there was a ‘cranny,’ I was certainly not aware of it. But my mom was not referring to secret portions of my room that I didn’t know about; what mom meant was that I was to clean to the extreme. To apply my cleaning to every part of my room, so that every part of that filthy room would be transformed.

This depth of transformation is not too different from our life in Christ. When God makes us his people, he means for us to live according to the truth of Christ in his gospel, extending it to every corner of our life. Taking the truth of the gospel and transforming every ‘nook and cranny’ with it. This is what Paul means when he calls us to ‘become wise’ in verse 18.

Wisdom is word of the day here. So we must first understand what Paul means by wisdom. Wisdom is not the same thing as knowledge. We easily confuse the two in definition but you probably know the difference when you see it lived out. For example, you likely know people who have knowledge about all sorts of things but their lives are a mess. Or, on the other hand, you may know someone who had limited education and lacks knowledge in many things but lives very well. These examples show the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Wisdom is best understood as a skill for living. It is the application of truth to life. One who lives well according to what they know is true is truly wise. This is where we see wisdom.

But not all wisdom is created equal. Paul says that the world and Christ present two very different systems of wisdom. There is a skill for living in the world and a skill for living in the cross and they are not the same thing. Verse 19 goes as far as to say that ‘the wisdom of this world is folly with God.’ So different is the world’s wisdom from God’s that it is utter foolishness from God.  Paul has alluded to this truth twice in this letter already. In chapter two he said that the wisdom Christians are striving for is, ‘not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away.’ (1 Cor. 2:6-8) And in the beginning of this letter, in chapter one he told his readers that, ‘the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God.’ (1 Cor. 1:18-21) The wisdom a Christian is seeking and that which they live by is not the worlds.

The trouble is that before we were saved by the gospel (and often after) we tend to clutter our lives by living by worldly wisdom. We trust the gospel for its’ wisdom in dealing with our guilt before God but we do not apply the work of Christ to our difficulty in forgiving others. We apply Christ’s work toward our fear of the future but it does not touch our anxiety for today. We understand the freedom that we have in being justified before God but we still struggle to have meaningful relationships with others because of resentment and competition. In such cases we are continuing to apply a worldly wisdom to part of our lives, but the gospel has not worked on the ‘nooks and crannies’ and so we live according to what God bluntly calls foolishness.

Paul says that we deceive ourselves when we continue to live this way. We are deceived by appealing to a wisdom that we were not meant to live by. And it is deception. We often do not even realize that we are doing it. It is simply clutter we ignorantly carried in or are ignorantly carrying in from the world. The end of verse 19 suggests that this is a snare to us and that this sort of wisdom is ‘futile.’ It will not lead us anywhere helpful. We must begin to let the gospel work on those blind spots of our lives.

This is what Paul means when he says in verse 18, that a person should ‘become a fool that he may become wise’ is not to say that a person should become foolish. Rather, that he should reject the world’s wisdom in favor of God’s wisdom. He should become a fool to the world so that he might find true wisdom in the cross, and to not just believe that wisdom for future hope, but every part of our life.

Paul gives the answer in verse 22, ‘whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's. We are to meditate on the truth that we belong to Christ and Christ is God’s only hope for us because he is the Christ we are longing for. We are instructed to live by the wisdom of the cross, appealing to the truth of the gospel for our wisdom in this life. Learning to skillfully apply the work of Christ in the cross to every ‘nook and cranny’ of our life. And that work comes by cherishing the gospel, keeping the truths of the gospel in view, and going back to the cross day by day and situation by situation. When I feel anxiety, fear, anger at others (or even indifference toward others) I must go to the gospel and ask God for the wisdom to apply it to that situation. When I behold the wonderous cross, then I can forgive as I am forgiven, feel true freedom from the fears and anxieties of this world as I have been given freedom, and apply its’ wisdom to every other situation of life that we won’t possibly be able to prepare for.

1.     Think of a recent situation in which you were anxious, fearful, or sinfully angry (or other situations). Do you believe what Paul says, that you were deceived to feel that way? How does the gospel apply in that situation?

2.     We all have room to grow in this area and, at times, to apply the gospel more fully or speedily. How can you grow in your wisdom in applying the gospel to your life?

3.     How can you help other Christians in the church to grow in the wisdom of the cross?