1 Corinthians 1:21-31

21 To this day the great, the noble, and the wise are a small minority among the true saints of God. It is a matter of extreme thankfulness that this is so. If high birth or wisdom or any other attainment were necessary to His choice, how few would be able to measure up to His standard, and how little glory would there be for Him! Yet now we see those mentally deficient, chosen by Him, acting more wisely than the philosophers who shut God out of their lives. Here in Corinth we see the trembling apostle, scorned even by those to whom he has been the means of blessing, doing a work which has brought more glory to God and good to man than all the efforts of the might and nobility of all time!

30 Would that we would cease looking for anything in ourselves! Let us not boast in our wisdom, or our holiness, but find these only in Christ. Then let us boast to our heart's content in that which we have in Him.

1 Eloquent appeals, logical arguments, or profound philosophy, have no place in the proclamation of the evangel. We are to proclaim the word, testify to the truth. The subject matter is all provided by God. Nothing would have appealed to the Corinthians better than some new philosophy, or some astute line of reasoning. But faith does not rest on reason but on a message backed by the power of the Spirit of God. What is needed today is a return to the simple, unadorned proclamation of the evangel, the death of Christ on the cross for our sins and the resurrection of Christ because of our justification. The power of this good news is as great today as it proved to be in Corinth.

7 Though God has repudiated the world's wisdom, there is a divine wisdom, of which the world knows nothing, which even the saints do not apprehend until they attain maturity. This wisdom is fully unfolded in Paul's later epistles to the Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians.

It cannot be grasped, even today, by carnal saints. It is for the spiritual, who have seen the end of the flesh.

7 " Before the eons" shows that the eons or ages are not eternal in the past, but had a definite beginning.

9 We need only consider our own desire to surprise and gratify those who love us to realize a little of what is in God's heart toward us. God gives of His Spirit, that we may apprehend His further gifts. The secret here hinted at by Paul can be none other than the secret economy unfolded in his Ephesian epistle, which is based upon the secret of Christ, or His exaltation as the Head of the whole universe. As such He is the Lord of glory, for no one on earth, or in the heavens, approaches the honor and dignity which will be His in the eons of the eons.

11 The apostle appeals to our own experience. Human beings can understand one another because they have the same spirit. But animals cannot enter into the recesses of human experience. No more can a man apprehend things divine without the interpretive presence of

God's holy Spirit.

13 The Scriptures often lay stress on the character of the words employed by the Spirit of God. A large measure of the current confusion may be traced to the loose, unscriptural terms which are used. Timothy was urged to hold to the pattern of sound words. If this is true in the original language, how much more should we endeavor to fulfill this charge!

13 The term "matching" has been rendered "comparing". But the thought of the passage is not the agreement between spiritual things, but the adaptation of spiritual things to mankind. It is useless to teach a soulish man spiritual things, for he has no means of grasping them.

1 Doubtless the apostle would gladly have instructed the Corinthians in the deep things of God, but they were not able to bear them. And what was the sure sign of their carnality? Division. While some were the partisans of Paul, who planted, and some of Apollos, who watered, and strove about God's gifts in the person of His servants, they were effectually frustrating any further outflow of His favor. And so it is today. If any yearn to know the deep secrets of God, let them purge themselves of all party spirit, and thus open their hearts to the great Giver Himself.