1 Corinthians 2:1,2
1 Corinthians 2:1-2 say how P. _did not come_, vv, 3 5 how he actually _did come_, to Cor [303] [303] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Corinthians 2:1-2 say how P. _did not come_, vv, 3 5 how he actually _did come_, to Cor [303] [303] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.... [ Continue Reading ]
§ 6. PAUL'S CORINTHIAN MISSION, Paul has justified his refusing to preach ἐν σοφίᾳ λόγου on two grounds: (1) the nature of the Gospel, (2) the constituency of the Church of Cor [287]; _it_ was no philosophy, and _they_ were no philosophers. This refusal he continues to make, in pursuance of _the cou... [ Continue Reading ]
Κἀγὼ ἐλθὼν … ἦλθον : “And I at my coming … came”: the repeated vb [288] draws attention to Paul's _arrival_, to the circumstances and character of his original work at Cor [289] The emphasis of κἀγώ “And _I_ ” may lie in the correspondence between the message and the messenger _both_ “foolish” and “... [ Continue Reading ]
οὐ γὰρ ἔκρινά τι (or ἔκρινα τὶ) εἰδέναι κ. τ. λ.: “For I did not determine (judge it fit) to know anything (_or_, know something) among you, except (_or_, only) Jesus Christ, and Him crucified”. This explains Paul's unadorned and matter-of-fact delivery. οὐ negatives ἔκρινα, not εἰδέναι (the renderi... [ Continue Reading ]
“In weakness”: _cf._ 1 Corinthians 1:25; 1 Corinthians 1:27; also 2 Corinthians 10:10; 2 Corinthians 13:3 f. This condition was bodily the Cor [304] had received an impression of Paul's physical feebleness; but the phrase expresses, more broadly, his conscious want of resources for the task before h... [ Continue Reading ]
“And my word and my message:” λόγος recalls 1 Corinthians 1:18; κήρυγμα, 1Co 1:21; 1 Corinthians 1:23 (see notes). The former includes all that Paul says in proclaiming the Gospel, the latter the specific announcement of God's will and call therein. οὐκ ἐκ πιθοῖς σοφίας λόγοις, “not in persuasive wo... [ Continue Reading ]
The Apostle's purpose in discarding the orator's and the sophist's arts was this: “that your faith might not rest in wisdom of men, but in (the) power of God”. The κἀγὼ ἦλθον of 1 Corinthians 2:1 dominates the paragraph; P. lives over again the experience of his early days in Cor [323]; this purpose... [ Continue Reading ]
Σοφίαν δὲ λαλοῦμεν κ. τ. λ.: “(there is) a wisdom, however, (that) we speak amongst the full-grown”. The anarthrous, predicative σοφίαν asserts that to be “wisdom” which in ironical deference to the world has been styled “folly” (1 Corinthians 1:21 ff.). ἐν τοῖς τελείοις, _the mature, the initiates_... [ Continue Reading ]
§ 7. THE GOSPEL CONSIDERED AS WISDOM. So far Paul has been maintaining that his message is a “folly,” with which “wisdom of word” is out of keeping; yet all the while he makes it felt that it is wisdom in the truest sense “ _God's_ wisdom,” convicting in its turn the world of folly. If relatively th... [ Continue Reading ]
“(We speak … a wisdom not of this world …) but (ἀλλά, of diametrical opposition) a wisdom of God, in (shape of) a mystery.” ἐν μυστηρίῳ qualifies λαλοῦμεν, rather than σοφίαν (as Hn [340], Ev [341], Lt [342] read it “couched in mystery”), indicating how it is that the App. do not speak in terms of w... [ Continue Reading ]
ἣν οὐδεὶς κ. τ. λ.: “which (wisdom) none of the rulers of this age has perceived” all blind to the significance of the rise of Christianity. ἔγνωκεν, a pf., approaching the pr [351] sense (_novi_) which f1οἶδα had reached, but implying, as that does not, a process _has come to know, won the knowledg... [ Continue Reading ]
confirms by the language of Scripture (καθὼς γέγραπται) what has just been said. The verse is open to three different constructions: (1) It seems best to treat the relatives, ἅ, ὅσα, as in apposition to the foregoing ἣν clauses of 1 Corinthians 2:7-8 (the _form_ of the pronoun being dictated by the... [ Continue Reading ]
The true reading, ἡμῖν γάρ (_cf._ 1 Corinthians 1:26), links this ver. to the foregoing by way of illustration: “For to _us_ (being of those that love Him) God revealed (them), through the Spirit”: _cf._ 1 Corinthians 1:18 1 Corinthians 8:3, 1 Corinthians 13:2; 1 John 4:7; also ἀπεκαλύφθη τ. ἁγίοις... [ Continue Reading ]
to 1 Corinthians 3:2. § 8. THE REVEALING SPIRIT. The world's rulers committed the frightful crime of “crucifying the Lord of glory,” because in fact they have only “the spirit of the world,” whereas “the Spirit of _God_ ” informs His messengers (1 Corinthians 2:10-12), who communicate the things of... [ Continue Reading ]
“For amongst men, who knows (οἶδεν) the things of the man, except the spirit of the man that is within him? So also the things of God none has perceived (ἔγνωκεν), except the Spirit of God.” Far from being otiose, ἀνθρώπων is emphatic: P. argues from human to Divine personality; each heart of man ha... [ Continue Reading ]
ἡμεῖς δέ, “But _we_ ”: _cf._ the emphatic ἡμῖν of 1 Corinthians 2:10 (see note) and the ἡμεῖς δὲ of 1 Corinthians 1:23, standing in contrast with the σοφοὶ and δυνατοὶ of the world. The κόσμος whose “spirit” the App. “did _not_ receive,” is that whose “wisdom God has reduced to folly” (1 Corinthians... [ Continue Reading ]
ἃ καὶ λαλοῦμεν the vb [395] of 1 Corinthians 2:6-7 (see note): there opposed to μυστήριον, here to εἰδῶμεν (_cf._ John 3:11) “which things indeed we speak out”; knowing these great things of God, we _tell_ them (_cf._ John 18:20; also 2 Corinthians 4:2 ff., Luke 12:2 f., Acts 26:16). P. has no esote... [ Continue Reading ]
With the App. all is _spiritual_ words and thoughts; for this very reason men of the world reject their teaching: “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God” (_cf._ Romans 8:5; John 15:18-21; 1 John 4:5). Of the vbs. for _receiving_, λαμβάνω (1 Corinthians 2:12) regards the o... [ Continue Reading ]
“But the spiritual man tries (tests) everything” a maxim resembling, perhaps designedly, the Stoic dicta concerning “the wise man”. Paul sees “in the Πνεῦμα, the Divine power creatively working in the man and imparted to him, the κριτήριον for the right estimate of persons and things, Divine and hum... [ Continue Reading ]
Of the three clauses of Isaiah 40:13, P. adopts in Romans 11:34 the 1James, 2 nd, here the 1James, 3 rd; in both instances from the LXX (which renders the Heb. freely), in both instances without the καθὼς γέγραπται of formal quotation. ὃς συνβιβάσει αὐτόν (_qui instructurus sit eum_, Bz [445] : on t... [ Continue Reading ]