Fools for Christ’s Sake

By Robb Brunansky

Published July 9, 2026

One of the key problems in the Corinthian church was that everyone wanted to be esteemed as the greatest. These prideful attitudes led to much division as people took sides in the church. The Corinthians were not unlike Jesus’ disciples, who argued over their rank (Luke 22:24).

Prideful division of God’s people is very common. Christians are easily hurt when we don’t receive recognition we think we deserve, or when our ministries are not prioritized according to our estimation. These feelings are very deceptive – often going unnoticed or masked as virtues.

However, the Lord calls us to kill any inflated view of ourselves and to preserve the unity of the body of Christ by focusing on Him and His glory alone, thus giving us a guide to dealing with our own pride in 1 Corinthians 4:6-13. There are three truths in this passage we must understand to identify and destroy pride that so easily threatens the unity of Christ’s church.

The first is understanding the root of pride (verses 6-7).

The root of pride is a disregard of Scripture. Pride corrupts our hearts and inflates our own importance and significance when we set aside God’s Word. One reason God has given us His Word is to help us see ourselves accurately, according to how the Lord views us. Yet, once we transgress biblical teaching and go beyond Scripture, we overestimate our importance.

Thinking about wisdom, power, and status according to the world is disregarding God’s Word. Throughout this letter, Paul has shown God’s triumphs over earthly systems of power and status through the cross of Christ, illustrating these truths with several analogies from agriculture to architecture to stewardship. He made those arguments so the Corinthians would submit their thinking to Scripture and not set up their own arrogant standard.

We see how this pride manifests itself in three questions in this passage, starting with “Who?” Who regards you as superior? If God doesn’t see us as superior, then we must be focused on men’s opinions. Pride turns our eyes from the Lord’s evaluation of us to man’s, or even to our own evaluation of ourselves. Focusing on men is a sign pride has crept into our hearts.

The second question is “What?” What do you have that you did not receive? All ministry, career or parenting success, marital bliss, or anything others might think well of us for having or doing, are gifts of God’s grace. Pride causes us to lose our focus on the Lord.

The third question is “Why?” Why do you boast as if you did not receive it? Pride rejects divine grace, boasting that we are responsible for our gifts, achievements, intelligence, status, or whatever else we think is valuable or impressive. Pride wants glory belonging to God alone.

Now, we need to beware of the result of pride (verse 8).

When Christians become arrogant, focusing on men rather than God and His divine grace, we become satisfied with lesser things. The Corinthians were satisfied with how things already were rather than longing for the glorious fulfillment yet to come. Christians should recognize and rejoice in the already, but we should not be satisfied with our current blessings as if this is the pinnacle and consummation. Our present experiences are merely down payments on our blessings to come, and our greatest joys are yet future when we will be forever free from everything in this cursed world.

However, the Corinthians were satisfied with the already blessings, as if this world offered them the pinnacle of life. Paul describes them as filled, rich, and kings. All these statements are clearly sarcastic as Paul makes a serious point about what happens when we become proud. We end up with an inflated view of ourselves, making us content with worldly status, riches, pleasures, and accolades. Jesus warned about this pride, too, when He talked about the dangers of religious hypocrisy that makes us look significant in men’s eyes (Matthew 6).

So, what do we do about this insidious and deceptive pride that so easily creeps into our hearts? We must pursue the remedy for pride (verses 9-13).

The remedy for pride is to look to the gospel, the word of the cross, and the wisdom of God. The path of followers of Christ is not marked by worldly acclaim and prestige, but by what our culture considers weak and foolish.

Remember, far from being acclaimed by the world, Paul and the apostles were condemned. They were mocked, ridiculed, and treated like people who are worthy of nothing but torture and death. God, though, displayed His wisdom through the sufferings of His apostles as they followed in the footsteps of Christ. Christians are a spectacle to the universe because of our suffering, not because of our status.

Christians also live a life marked by weakness. God calls the foolish, the weak, the nobodies, and the nothings; but the Corinthians used the cross to become the wise, the powerful, and the prestigious, which is not how the apostles lived. Instead, the apostles’ entire lives were marked by weakness and foolishness to the world, and they were dishonorable people because they worshiped a crucified Savior.

Not all believers have the same calling, but all Christians are called to stop their pursuit of worldly values, pursuing Christ and God’s wisdom in the cross instead. We must be content to live a life of weakness and obscurity as we pursue Christ, and to be fools for Christ’s sake.

One other aspect of the Corinthians’ weakness and foolishness is revealed in Paul’s exhortation to bless those who persecute us. When unbelievers are reviled and hated, they fight back, which is not the way of the cross. Paul does not say that Christians cannot use legal means to minimize or eliminate persecution, but that we should endure unavoidable persecution faithfully for the Lord’s sake. We respond in a way that would be considered weak by pleading with those who slander us – most likely with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The apostles were often punching bags for the world, enduring the suffering of persecution, and seeking to conciliate with their enemies. To all outward appearances, these men looked weak and foolish with their responses to injustice against them. They were regarded as human scum, proving there are no worldly accolades for followers of Jesus Christ, only scorn.

All this taught the Corinthians how to deflate their own inflated egos (verse 6). They must remember the way of the cross does not pursue worldly status, riches, power, or prestige. The world will always view the way of the cross as weak, foolish, and contemptible. Believers must be content to be fools for Christ’s sake. We should be ready to be considered the scum of the earth – not because we act like jerks, say bombastic things, or engage in shock jock techniques, but because we have taken up our cross to live a life of humility.

Such a mindset is only possible when Christians seek to allow the word of the cross to shape, not only the content of our doctrine, but the manner of our life. Pride is such a danger, not only to our individual maturity, but to the unity and growth of the church. We must mortify any inflated view we have of ourselves, and our significance, giftedness, or status in the church. The only way to deal with the ever-present temptation to pride is to be content to be fools for Christ’s sake.