The "Bottom-to-top" LIfe

"For look at your own calling as Christians, my brothers. You don’t see among you many of the wise (according to this world’s judgment) nor many of the ruling class, nor many from the noblest families. But God has chosen what the world calls foolish to shame the wise; he has chosen what the world calls weak to shame the strong. He has chosen things of little strength and small repute, yes and even things which have no real existence to explode the pretensions of the things that are—that no man may boast in the presence of God. Yet from this same God you have received your standing in Jesus Christ, and he has become for us the true wisdom, a matter, in practice, of being made righteous and holy, in fact, of being redeemed. And this makes us see the truth of scripture: ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord." (1 Corinthians 1:26-31)

What I find wonderful about this closing section of 1 Corinthians 1 is how it shows two patterns of approach to life - literally, in this paragraph, top-to-bottom or bottom-to-top - and then contraposes those positions and their ensuing fruit: 

So, if you're after the world's wisdom, the world's power and the world's forms of nobility, you will most likely end with shame and pretense. That's Paul's unvarnished top-to-bottom readout. And take a read through the book of Ecclesiastes and tell me King Solomon doesn't come to, essentially, the same conclusion...

BUT, if we "glory in the Lord," if we find ourselves "redeemed," meaning we've been "made righteous and holy," then our "true wisdom" comes naturally from our "standing in Jesus Christ" and our seeming foolish weakness becomes, in Him, strong wisdom. It is as if we become some sort of new, supernatural life-form. Which we, in fact, are!

For you and I are a "new creation" now, totally new already: We are being made to be just like Jesus Himself. That's the bottom-to-top of Paul's concluding thought, here. And, to me, it sounds like life itself.