It is a False Wisdom that Pits one Leader against Another: All are Yours. Paul warns against the self-deception which causes a man to overrate his own judgment. Better renounce his worldly wisdom, which God counts foolishness that he may become really wise. As Scripture says, God grips fast the wise in their cleverness (Job 5:13), and He knows the emptiness of their thoughts (Psalms 94:11, Paul substitutes the wise for men). So let none boast that he takes any man for his leader, pluming himself on his discernment. Indeed it is to rate one's own dignity too low. For all things belong to the Christian. Christians do not belong to one leader, but all leaders belong to them. The world, too, is theirs, this physical universe with all its throng of sentient beings, life and death, the present, the future. But they are Christ's, and possess all things through His possession of them; and He too belongs to God and we are His. The Stoics had similar sayingsAll things belong to the wise (Zeno), All things are mine (Seneca). Some of the more philosophical type at Corinth may have made this a kind of watchword. Paul endorses it, but redeems it by the reminder that while all things belong to the Christian, he is not the lord of the universe but himself belongs in his turn to Christ. It is characteristic of Paul to soar away from these petty squabbles to those ultimate principles where his mind was most at home. That he does not mention Christ along with the three human teachers is no argument for the non-existence of a Christ-party. He does not place Christ on a level with them. He would not say to his readers that Christ belonged to them, the great thing they needed to remember was that they belonged to Christ. Christ is mentioned in His right place.
1 Corinthians 3:19 b. This and the quotation in Romans 11:35, the only quotations from Job in NT, differ considerably from the LXX; Paul probably had Job not in the LXX but another version.