For you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
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Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. The for gives the reason of what had gone before. This verse contains another proof of what was said in ver21 , "It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." For this is proved in two ways: (1.) in ver23 , from the object of preaching, viz, the Cross, by which God was pleased to save the world, but which to the world seems foolishness; (2.) from the ministers of preaching, viz, the Apostles, whose duty it was to preach salvation through the Cross, and who were men of no account, unpolished, despised, and foolish in the eyes of the world.
Again, the particle for fitly joins this verse to the preceding; ver25 gives an indefinite and general statement which is true, not only of the Cross, but also of the preachers of the Cross, as Athanasius points out (Ad Antiochum, qu129).
This particle, then, declares the likeness of the Apostles to t...
Vocation, is here used for the called, as Romans iii. 30. circumcision for the circumcised, (Romans xi. 7.) election for the elected. (Bible de Vence)
Consider your manner of being called; not many, hitherto, of those who have believed, or of those who have preached the gospel, are wise according to the flesh, or as to worldly wisdom; and in the esteem of men, not many mighty, not many noble. God hath chosen such as are looked upon as illiterate, without power, without riches, without human wisdom, to confound the great and wise men: He hath chosen the things that are not, that is, says St. Chrysostom, men reputed as nothing, of no consideration, to confound, to destroy, to make subject to him, and to the gospel, men who had the greatest worldly advantages, that no flesh, no men how great, wise, rich, or powerful soever, might glory in his sight, or attribute their call, and their salvation to their own merits.
From him you are in Christ Jesus brought to believe in him, who is made t...
The man who is wise according to the standards of this world is really very foolish, because he will not cast away his corrupt teaching. A little learning is a dangerous thing, because it makes those who have it unwilling to learn more. The unlearned are more open to conviction, because they are not so foolish as to think that they are wise.
He has said that the foolishness of God is wiser than men; he has showed that human wisdom is cast out, both by the testimony of the Scriptures and by the issue of events; by the testimony, where he says, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; by the event, putting his argument in the form of a question, and saying, Where is the wise? Where the Scribe? Again; he proved at the same time that the thing is not new, but ancient, as it was presignified and foretold from the beginning. For, It is written, says he, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. Withal he shows that it was neither inexpedient nor unaccountable for things to take this course: (for, seeing that in the wisdom of God the world, says he, knew not God, God was well pleased through the foolishness of preaching to save them which believe:) and that the Cross is a demonstration of ineffable power and wisdom, and that the foolishness of God is far mightier than the wisdom of man. And this again he proves not by means of the tea...
Joys?-which, indeed, is chiefly found among the wealthier; for the more any is rich, and inflated with the name of "matron "the more capacious house does she require for her burdens, as it were a field wherein ambition may run its course. To such the churches look paltry. A rich man is a difficult thing (to find) in the house of God;
