1 Corinthians 1:26

“For see your calling, brethren, there are among you not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble.”

This mode of recruiting the Church confirms the conclusion drawn above from the nature of the gospel. Hence the γάρ, in fact, which is certainly the true reading. It was not the leading classes of Corinthian society which had furnished the largest number of the members of the Church. The majority were poor, ignorant, slaves. God shows thereby that He has no need of human wisdom and power to support His work.

The verb βλέπετε should be taken as imperative and not as indicative: “Open your eyes, and see that...” This meaning is not incompatible with the γάρ. Meyer rightly quotes Sophocles, Phil. 5.1043: ἄφετε γὰρ αὐτόν.

Paul has come near to his readers in reminding them of this fact which touches them so closely; hence the address, brethren! The word κλῆσις, calling, has sometimes been taken in the sense wrongly given to the word vocation, as denoting social position. But this meaning is foreign to the New Testament. Paul would describe by it the manner in which God has proceeded in drawing this Church by the preaching of the gospel from the midst of the Corinthian population. Jesus had already indicated a similar dispensation in Israel, and had rendered homage to it: “Father, I thank Thee because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight” (Matthew 11:25-26). The fact was not therefore accidental; it belonged to the Divine plan. God did not wish that human wisdom should mix its alloy with His: the latter was to carry off victory alone. Meyer makes πολλοί, many, the subject, and σοφοί, wise, the attribute: “There are not many who are wise...mighty...” But in this sense the πολλοί must have been completed by the genitive ὑμῶν, of you. It is better simply to understand the verb ἔστε, “ Ye are not many wise.”

In the adjunct κατὰ σάρκα, according to the flesh, the word flesh denotes, as it often does, human nature considered in itself, and apart from its relation to God. This adjunct has not been added to the two following terms, mighty...noble, because, as de Wette says, these latter obviously denote advantages of an earthly nature.

Οἱ δυνατοί, mighty, denotes persons in office; εὐγενεῖς, the noble, persons of high birth, descendants of ancient families.