world. Far from it. The wisdom he has in mind doesn’t belong to ‘this age’ at all. It belongs to the ‘age to come’; speaking of it to those who aren’t already part of this ‘age to come’ is like speaking of a sunrise to blind people. Only those who have believed in the rising of the son of God can even begin to understand what this wisdom is. For the rest, it is as mad as the gospel itself. Paul here draws on a crucial distinction. This, indeed, is one of the main things he wants the Corinthians to