This paper argues that in his polemic against “the wisdom of this world” (1 Cor 1–4), Paul adopts a distinctly Cynic philosophy of education. Initially, I point to general Cynic traces in First Corinthians and then proceed to demonstrate that Paul’s conception of ideal (religious) education, that is, the right way of acquiring knowledge of the divine, is inspired by Cynicism. The scholarship on Cynic influence on Early Christianity typically focuses on the synoptic Gospels and Jesus’ life and teachings. With the example of First Corinthians, I hope to demonstrate the need for further exploration of Cynic ideas in the Pauline corpus, our earliest extant Christian texts. In 1 Cor 3:21 Paul writes: “for everything is yours.” Commentators have already pointed to the maxim “everything belongs to the wise”, known from Cynic and Stoic sources, as a context for the Pauline statement. What commentators fail to recognize, however, is that in Cynic sources the maxim appears as part of a full syllogism. I argue that all the elements of this syllogism are found in 1 Cor 3:18–21. Moreover, the syllogism appears in the Cynic sources as a justification for the Cynic’s right to beg. In 1 Cor 9, Paul defends the apostle’s right to receive material support, using an argument identical to that of the Cynics’. Cynic thought also shaped Paul’s view of ideal teaching and learning. On the question of how to acquire knowledge of God, addressed in chapters 1–4, Paul emphatically reminds the Corinthians that his proclamation was “not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in a demonstration of spirit and power” (1 Cor 2:4). The process of learning on the Corinthians’ part should equally be done through action rather than words. Paul thus encourages them to become his imitators (μιμηταί, 4:16). For Paul, good education consists in transmission of knowledge through example, not through words. The teacher is to act as a role model for his pupils to emulate. This pedagogical model rejects conventional Greco-Roman (and Jewish-Hellenistic) methods of education, which center on theory and texts. I argue, based on Cynic sources contemporaneous with Paul’s letter, that this position is distinctly Cynic. In my reconstruction of the Cynic philosophy of education I rely mainly on the Cynic epistles, written by Cynics around Paul’s time (Malherbe 1977). In one epistle, the author tells of some youth who imitated him, and explains that “the deed (ἔργον) teaches endurance faster than speech (λόγου), as is found in Diogenes’s philosophy alone” (Ps.-Crates, Ep. 20). Like Paul, example and imitation, as opposed to words and theory, embody the Cynic philosophy of education.