1 Corinthians 1:27,28

“Nay, but (ἀλλά, the but of exclusion) the foolish … the weak … the base-born things of the world God did choose out (when He chose you).” ἐξελέξατο (selected, picked out for Himself) is equivalent to ἐκάλεσεν (1Co 1:2; 1 Corinthians 1:9; 1 Corinthians 1:26), εὐδόκησεν … σῶσαι (1 Corinthians 1:21), τὴν χάριν ἔδωκεν ἐν Χ. Ἰ. (1 Corinthians 1:4); this word indicates the relation in which the saved are put both to God and to the world, out of (ἐξ) which they were taken (see parls.); nothing here suggests, as in Ephesians 1:4, the idea of eternal election. ἐξελέξατο ὁ Θεός : the astonishing fact thrice repeated, with solemn emphasis of assurance. The objects of God's saving choice and the means of their salvation match each other; by His τὸ μωρὸν and τὸ ἀσθενές (1 Corinthians 1:25) He saves τὰ μωρὰ and τὰ ἀσθενῆ : “the world laughs at our beggarly selves, as it laughs at our beggarly Gospell” The neut. adj [249] of 1 Corinthians 1:27 f. mark the category to which the selected belong; their very foolishness, weakness, ignobility determine God's choice (cf. Matthew 9:13; Luke 10:21, etc.). τοῦ κόσμου is partitive gen [250] : out of all the world contained, God chose its (actually) foolish, weak, base things making “fæx urbis lux orbis!” In this God acted deliberately, pursuing the course maintained through previous ages, ἐν τῇ σοφίᾳ τοῦ Θεοῦ (see note, 1 Corinthians 1:21): He “selected the foolish things of the world, that He might shame its wise men (τοὺς σοφούς) … the weak things of the world, that He might shame its strong things (τὰ ἰσχυρά), and the base-born things of the world and the things made absolutely nothing of … the things nonexistent, that He might bring the things existent to naught”. In the first instance a class of persons, immediately present to Paul's mind (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:20), is to be “put to shame”; in the two latter P. thinks, more at large, of worldly forces and institutions (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:31; 2 Corinthians 10:4-6). The pride of the cultured and ruling classes of paganism was to be confounded by the powers which Christianity conferred upon its social outcasts; as, e.g., Hindoo Brahminism is shamed by the moral and intellectual superiority acquired by Christian Pariahs. τὰ ἀγενῆ τοῦ κόσμου, third of the categories of disparagement, is reinforced by τὰ ἐξουθενημένα (from ἐξ and οὐδέν, pf. pass [251] : things set down as of no account whatever), then capped by the abruptly apposed τὰ μὴ ὄντα, to which is attached the crowning final clause, ἵνα τὰ ὄντα καταργήσῃ. For καταργέω (ut enervaret, Bz [252]), see note on κενόω (1 Corinthians 1:17), and parls.; the scornful world-powers are not merely to be robbed of their glory (as in the two former predictions), but of their power and being, as indeed befell in the end the existing social and political fabric. In τὰ μὴ ὄντα, “ μὴ implies that the non-existence is not absolute but estimative ” (Al [253]); the classes to which Christianity appealed were non-entities for philosophers and statesmen, cyphers in their reckoning: contrast οὐκ ὤν, of objective matter of fact, in John 10:12; Acts 7:5; also Eurip., Troad., 600. τὰ ὄντα connotes more than bare existence; “ipsum verbum εἶναι eam vim habet ut significet in aliquo numero esse, rebus secundis florere” (Pflugk, on Eurip., Hecuba, 284, quoted by Mr [254]); it is τὰ ὄντα κατʼ ἐξοχήν : cf. the adv [255] ὄντως in 1 Timothy 6:19.

[249] adjective.

[250] genitive case.

[251] passive voice.

[252] Beza's Nov. Testamentum: Interpretatio et Annotationes (Cantab., 1642).

[253] Alford's Greek Testament.

[254] Meyer's Critical and Exegetical Commentary (Eng. Trans.).

[255] adverb