What does 1 Corinthians 1:28 mean?

Paul continues his thought from the previous verse. He has written that God chooses those who will believe in the seemingly foolish message of Christ crucified. God mostly does not choose those of great status in human terms. He does not tend to choose respected academics, people of great wealth, or those born into rank and privilege. Those people have rejected the idea of Christ crucified as weak and foolish. Despite evidence and reason, they are too arrogant to trust in God (Romans 1:18–23; James 2:19).

Instead God shames their unbelief by choosing people the world sees as weak and foolish. Now he adds that God chooses for belief those who are low and despised in the world. He turns what the world sees as "something" into "nothing." And, in another sense, God brings meaning and value to those the world ignores; God chooses the "nothings."

To call people "nothings" may sound harsh and exaggerated to modern and western ears. Most of us cannot imagine the daily lives of those in a strict caste system. We cannot fathom life without any social position due to being in the slave class, or servant class, or birth into a low-reputation family, or with the "wrong" ethnic origin. Or maybe we know it better than we realize. In such cultures, human life without the protection of social and political standing was considered worthless, and certainly expendable.

That's who God chooses, Paul writes. He calls the "nothings" to faith in Christ looking forward to the day when all the "somethings" who rejected faith in Christ as foolish and weak will become the true nothings, in a sense, as they stand before Him.