Devotional 17 October 2025

The world is full of boasting. Whether it is intellectual pride, moral superiority, or religious zeal, people constantly seek reasons to glory in themselves. But Paul, echoing the prophet Jeremiah, reminds us that true boasting is not found in what we have accomplished, but in whom we know. “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me” (Jer. 9:23–24). The Christian’s only glory is in the Lord.

Paul does not speak with the authority of a philosopher or the eloquence of a rhetorician. He stands instead under the authority of God. He has already told the Corinthians that he did not come “with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power” (1 Cor. 1:17). The gospel is not a clever idea that man discovered, it is the revelation of God’s power through the humiliation of His Son. The cross is the great reversal of worldly wisdom: what seems foolish and weak to men is in fact the wisdom and strength of God (1 Cor. 1:25).

Paul’s life and teaching flow from this truth. He does not stand before the church as a man who has figured God out, but as one overwhelmed by the mercy that found him. Like Peter, Paul does not claim insight of his own; all that he teaches comes from divine revelation. The message he bears is not a philosophy to be debated but a proclamation of a Person: Christ crucified and risen. To boast in the Lord is to recognize that salvation, faith, obedience, and even understanding are all gifts of God’s grace (Eph. 2:8–9; Phil. 2:13).

This means that among Christians there can be no elitism, no sense of superiority, no self-made saints. “What do you have that you did not receive?” Paul asks later (1 Cor. 4:7). Every part of our salvation, from beginning to end, is God’s doing. Before we were saved, we were helpless sinners; after salvation, we are empowered only by His Spirit. Therefore, every reason for boasting in ourselves has been crucified with Christ.

To boast in the Lord, then, is not merely to redirect our pride, it is to worship. Our glorying becomes thanksgiving, our confidence becomes praise. We rejoice not in what we have done for God, but in what God has done for us. True boasting bows low before the cross and says, with Paul, “Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal. 6:14).