1 Corinthians 1:26-29 - Homiletics

God destroying the conventionally great by the conventionally contemptible.

"For ye see your calling, brethren," etc. These verses remind us of two facts.

I. EVIL EXISTS HERE UNDER CONVENTIONALLY RESPECTABLE FORMS , Evil is spoken of in these verses as the "wise" and the "mighty." In Corinth dangerous errors wore the costume of wisdom. Power was also on their side. Sages, poets, artists, statesmen, wealth, and influence stood by them, and they appeared "mighty." Men in England, as in Corinth, have robed evils in attractive costumes, and labelled them with brilliant names. Often, indeed, has religion itself been used as a means of covering vices, and of raising the vilest passions of the human heart into the spheres of worship. Everywhere evil assumes a respectable garb.

1. Infidelity. This great evil writes and speaks in the stately formularies of philosophy and science; borrows its sanctions from astronomy, chronology, criticism, and metaphysics. It is a "wise" thing of the world.

2. Licentiousness. This evil, which involves the utter neglect of all social obligations, and the unrestrained development of the base and vicious lusts of the soul, passes under the grand name of liberty. The vaunted religious liberty of England's population means often only power to neglect sacred ordinances, profane the holy sabbath, etc.

3. Social injustice. This is a demon which works in every sphere of life, leading the crafty to take advantage of the ignorant, the strong of the weak, the rich of the poor; and this does most of its fiendish work in the name of law.

4. Selfishness. This goes under the name of prudence. The man whose heart knows no throb of sympathy for another passes through life with the reputation of a prudent man.

5. Bigotry . This, which leads men to brand all who differ from them as heretics and doom them to perdition, wears the sacred name of religion.

6. War. This, which by the common consent of all Christian philosophers is the pandemonium where all evil passions of the human heart run riot in their most fiendish forms, is called glory. Thus here and now, as everywhere and ever, evil appears as the "wise" and the "mighty." That errors and evils should appear in respectable forms is one of the most unfavourable symptoms in all the history of man. Could we but take from sin the mantle of respectability that society has thrown over it, we should do much towards its annihilation.

II. GOD IS DETERMINED TO OVERTHROW EVIL BY CONVENTIONALLY CONTEMPTIBLE MEANS . "God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise," etc. The "wise" and the "mighty" cannot protect evil. The agency to sweep evil away is here represented as "foolish," "weak," "base," "despised," and "things which are not." What does this language mean?

1. It does not mean that the gospel is an inferior thing. The gospel is no mean thing. It has proved itself the wisdom of God and the power of God.

2. It does not mean that tile men appointed as its ministers are to be inferior. There are several things to show that the gospel ministry requires the highest order of mind.

3. What, then, do they mean?

From this subject we may infer: