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1st Corinthians 2.1-5
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December 17th 2017
Alright, Chapter 2.
The design of this chapter appears to be somewhat of a continuation of the last fourteen verses of chapter one. Since it was not written in chapters all it really is is Paul remaining on the topic of God not appealing to the wisdom of the world but to heavenly influences to accomplish His purposes.
So let’s continue reading beginning at verse 1. I am going to emphasize some key terms Paul assigns to his own person here, saying now, relative to himself:
1st Corinthians 2:1 And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.
2 For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
3 And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.
4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
Let’s go back to verse 1 where Paul is merely continuing on with the subject we left off on in chapter 1, saying:
“And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.”
Even though there was trouble in the church Paul does not hesitate to call them by the endearing term of brothers – brethren.
“Brother, I want you to recall,” he seems to be saying, “that when I came to you.”
This is Paul comparing his apostolic ways with whomever had introduced more carnal ways of doing things there in the church.
“When I came at first to preach the gospel at Corinth, I came not with excellency of speech.”
This comparison is to support the last lines of what we call the first chapter where he tells them that God does not use the mighty to accomplish his will and to confound the wise in the world but he instead uses the weak, broken, and debased.
We learned over the past two weeks that one of the reasons God does this is to confound the mighty, strong and wise in the world.
That word translated confound in the King James comes from the Greek,
kat-ahee-skhoo’-no
It’s a compound word created by taking aheeskhoo-no, which means to shame, and adding the prefix “kata” to it, which means down or to take down.
Putting “kata” and “ahee-skhoo-no” together what Paul was saying is God uses the weak and broken to bring shame down upon the mighty and strong.
In my estimation there are only two scenarios where this would happen – where the weak would bring shame down upon the mighty –
One of them is not here in the natural world – the mighty don’t naturally feel shame in the presence of the broken and debased.
But the mighty are often shamed in the faith, when the simple humble beauties of the Gospel stream from mouth of the babes and broken.
The other place where shame will pour DOWN upon the mighty of the world from the humble devotions of the weak may be after this life, when all things are made apparent – including the futile lives of those who ignored eternal matters and instead made their lives focus entirely temporal.
Whatever the application, down shaming the mighty is the best way to describe the reason God uses the weak things of the world.
“And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom (things the Greeks adored) when I declared unto you the testimony of God.”
When I gave you my witness (mar-too-ree-on) of God.
What was Paul’s testimony or witness or mart-too-ree-on of God?
Jesus Christ.
That was his and this is our testimony of God – Jesus Christ – the Word of God made flesh.
Words relate, words describe, words direct, words illuminate, words communicate, convey – so when the Word of God was made flesh – that flesh, of the man Jesus Christ, born of a woman, of Nazareth in Galilee, God’s only human Son, was an earthly witness of the invisible God!
Jesus, the Word made flesh, related the invisible God to us. He described the invisible God to us. He directed us to Godly paths, illuminated God to us as the light of the world, communicated God to us.
Jesus was Paul’s witness of God – that He was the only thing Paul declared – Jesus Christ – the witness of God – born, raised, killed, raised from the dead, ascended into heaven to the right hand of His Father, preparing to return with reward and judgment.
No excellency of speech required to describe this witness of God. Just the simplicity which was Him and His gospel. (verse 2)
2 For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
For I made a deliberate resolution – a cognitive choice that was fixed when I came to you.
It is really quite interesting when we think about it. Later we will read Paul say
1st Corinthians 9:19 For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more.
20 And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law;
21 To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law.
22 To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.
23 And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you.
We note that while Paul says this here he does NOT say that to the “Greek rhetoricians he became a Greek rhetorician.”
Why do you suppose this is? I would suggest that when men allow themselves to be drawn into that style of thinking that perhaps the truth will remain elusive.
Therefore Paul purposely, he says here, decided to NOT become “a rhetorician to the rhetoricians” even though he was willing to become all things to all men as a means to save some.
The quagmire of human wisdom and Hellenist logic can serve as an opposing force where the Gospel light is concerned and it appears that Paul understood this.
In my lost years I sojourned for several years in the philosophies of Man, getting so lost in my own fleshly brain and logic that I ultimately arrived at nihilism – or the belief that nothing has real value.
Paul, realizing the unending perils of such thinking chose to come to the believers at Corinth with no inclination toward such thinking – but humbled himself down, and willing to be seen as a fool for Christ,
“determined not to know any thing among them, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”
We want, in our natural state and mind, to be seen and accepted in areas of social stature. We want to be able to hang with the best of them in realms of philosophy and the like – there’s a certain pride to able to “know” Kant’s deontological moral theory (even saying that makes me sound smart, right?) We want to be able to articulate Hegel, and Wittgenstein – and more and more in our day and age there is a growing propensity toward “knowing” such things – or at least pretending to.
But Paul says plainly,
I was DETERMINE to not KNOW anything among with wise of the world except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
Again, not because there is anything wrong with having knowledge or being able to relate to a given audience but because in those ways of rhetoric popular among the Greeks knowing and or engaging in their ways would not lead to anything valuable – in the end. This Paul seemed to know from the get go.
I believe that as a result of his implementing this determined approach Paul says (verse 3)
3 And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.
We know from Acts 18 that Paul was in Corinth for at least a year and half – apparently never really comfortable with what was before him as he was with them in “weakness, fear, and trembling.”
Weakness – “asthenia” – feebleness, non strength
Fear – “fob-os” – exceeding fear and alarm
Trembling – trom-os – quaking with fear.
In my limited mind I tend to think of Paul in an exciting open and fun place where he is sharing the Good News with willing people in an environment of kindness.
Not so.
We remember that even though Paul was a tremendous writer when inspired he not a public speaker.
2nd Corinthians 10:10 says of Paul:
For his letters, say they, are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.
There in the interchange of East and West He was more like a humble church mouse sharing a simple message in a house full of very articulate feral cats. Knowing this appears to have caused him to operate from the dust of Christian humility.
He knew how much the Greeks valued a manly, elegant oratory but he chose to remain true to delivering something that only the true would understand.
In Acts 18, relative to Corinth, the Lord came to Paul in a night vision and said:
“Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace; for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much people in this city,”
Here’s the deal – when we are on God’s errant – which is what we are all on when sharing the message of the cross – we have His message. The natural Man will not comprehend it, but this is irrelevant. Our purpose is to share it, and not fear what men may say or think.
Going all the way back to the Book of Jeremiah we read his words that are so fitting to this situation. In chapter 1 beginning at verse 4 we read:
Jeremiah 1:4 Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
6 Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child.
7 But the LORD said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.
8 Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD.
9 Then the LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.
10 See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.
Moving further back, we read in Deuteronomy 31:6 relative to Moses:
Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.
To Ezekiel 2:6 God says to the prophet:
“And thou, son of man, be not afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns be with thee, and thou dost dwell among scorpions: be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house.”
David wrote in Ps 27:1
The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
I mention all of this because it is very normal to fear repercussions of the opposition.
But trusting in the Lord and his ways, there is nothing to fear. Again a reiteration at verse four:
4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
I didn’t step forward with great Grecian elegance, using terms and words that would convince but being that my message was a message from God, I did come forward in
“demonstration of the Spirit and power.”
In other words, the meaning is, that the spirit furnished the evidence of the Divine origin of the message he preached.
The proof, the demonstration which the Spirit furnished, was perhaps:
the miracles which were wrought,
maybe the gift of tongues used in sharing the message in the cultural melting pot, and
the remarkable conversions which attended his preaching.
Because Paul wrote in 2nd Corinthians 2:12 that “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles” we have evidence that all these works of the Spirit of God were at hand there.
The idea that tongues were spoken in Corinth comes from the fact that Paul address the subject of tongues in the church within the epistle therefore showing that there was a presence of them that – which are obviously a work of the Spirit, and
Conversions are always a manifestation of the work of the Spirit.
For what reason did Paul do all these things this way? He tells them in verse 5:
5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
The better Greek for this is, That you faith should not BE in the wisdom of men . . .
It shouldn’t rest in this, it shouldn’t rely on this. Let me speak to this for a couple minutes.
When we look at certain occupations or avocations they are often based on preparing others for certain future circumstances and events that will inevitably pop up in their pupils lives.
A gymnastics trainer prepares their students to step out on a mat or to face the bars and execute what is necessary to deliver a solid performance.
A teacher is to prepare his or her students for the next grade, and professors are preparing students to enter the professional world and work force of their choice.
I am convinced that a Pastor (or Reverend or priest or whatever’s) job is to do everything in their power to lead their congregates to what Paul says in verse 5 – to ensure that
“Their faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”
To do this effectively is not an easy task for a number of reasons including the fact that people want to be told what to think and do – they want an earthly leader.
Add in that there is both a “resistance to living wholly by faith” in people which is oddly combined with “a ready acceptance to trust things of the flesh” and the battle is tenacious.
Knowing and seeing this, the faith is inundated with invitations for believers to hang onto “the wisdom of man” instead of the power of God in their lives.
In my estimation, the number one thing Pastors can use to get their people from trusting in flesh over the power of God in the Spirit is a constant diet of the Word of God – as often and constant as possible.
I also think the refusal to provide the flock with worldly wisdom relative to their problems but to direct all to seek God directly goes a long way in helping people stand in the power of God.
I do not believe that churches ought to insert themselves in between the believer and God in anything – if possible – and to let the person work out their own salvation with fear and trembling.
To supply the individual believer with religious crutches – built by the wisdom of men – is to deny the believer the need for them to learn to rely and trust upon the power of God directly.
See, God wants to be intimately involved in every persons life. Intimately. I believe He wants the individual to talk with him conversationally, to rely on him and his care provisionally, occupationally, emotionally.
He wants our prayers and worship to be for Him, our woes to be cast upon Him, our fears to be met with faith in Him, and our love for self to be trumped by love for Him.
Human intervention is not only unnecessary in many circumstances today, they often serve to cause believers to constantly be looking around themselves for answers rather than looking . . . up.
Jesus broke down the middle wall between God and man and made access to all ready and available. Often when men in their wisdom concoct schemes and plans, the net effect is others lose relationship with God because they have gained relationship with a pastor who allows himself to make intercession, or rely on some other factor that is willing to insert itself between them and their creator.
Paul’s actions were to ensure that the believer’s at Corinth were NOT only NOT reliant on the wisdom of man but were on the power of God.
When we think about it, unless individuals have evidence of the power of God in their lives they have in reality a house built on the sands of Man.
It therefore makes sense that the goal is for every individual to experience God and His ways directly in their lives separate of the influence and directives of Man.
These evidences are manifest when we are in desperation and God shows up and saves.
When we are in need of answers and God shows up and provides them. When we are trying to overcome something, receive solace to sin, know of His unconditional love and He shows up and delivers them.
The more of these things, and the less religion, the more a person has been founded on the Rock, and when the storms come, will remain.
It is not surprise at all that the majority of people exiting Mormonism exit today into the arms of atheism. I suggest that the main reason for this is because they never really leaned on God directly, but on a religion that was more than willing to wrongly assume the role of intermediary.
The first phase in possessing this direct and unencumbered relationship comes when the individual realizes, by the power of God, that they are His by and through faith on His Son – and nothing more.
That all of their sins have been assumed by Him AND that upon belief they are made righteous before God, imputed with the righteousness of Christ.
Short of this, the first phase will remain incomplete, as will the relationship the individual might have with God directly.
At this point Paul, in some ways, repeats much of what has already been said in chapter one – in terms of principles – but let’s read it and then begin to work through it all.
So, at verse 6 he says:
6 Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought:
7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:
8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
Alright back to verse 6 where he says:
Howbeit (However) we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought:
This is sort of a wild statement here in the King James, eh?
“However we speak wisdom among them that are perfect.” The meaning seems to be, “We don’t rely on the wisdom of men but to those who are mature in the faith what we do share is very wise.”
So while in other places Paul says he does not mind being considered a fool for Christ here he is clarifying his position and says:
“What we preach is not foolish – it is wisdom to those who understand it, to the mature in the faith.”
The way the King James reads is:
“We speak wisdom among those who are perfect.” Not such a good translation.
It is a term used in other places in scripture. For instance, Philippians 3:15 says:
“Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.”
The Greek word translated perfect here is teleos, and it better means complete and is typically used synonymously in scripture with those who are meat eaters and those who are mature in the faith.
Referring back to our diagram last week it describes those in the Christian walk who possess within their character not a light amount of the contents of the beatitudes – exuding as it were the fruit of the spirit – as Christ.
After all, if we are a person who has been poor in spirit, and mourns over their fails in life, and is meek, and hungers and thirsts after righteousness, all the way up to bearing persecution as Christ did, they are not only complete, they would most certainly be considered mature in the faith.
When applied to man teleos has never meant “perfect as in sinless.” That is a fabrication from the minds of foolish men.
There is also the slight chance that Paul was referring to a heathen practice that the people of Corinth would have been acquainted with where once a person was fully initiated into the rites and rituals of paganism they were considered complete.
The Revised version reads verse 6 as
“Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away.”
It seems that when Paul cites princes he was intending to describe the rulers of the Jews.
I say this because he uses the same term in verse 8 where this is exactly what he means.
Essentially he is saying that all of their apparent wisdom will mean nothing in the grave once the end of that age – the dispensation when the fulfillment of the law and the prophets falls upon them. So after mentioning those who were to perish, Paul adds (verse 7)
7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:
Now, I think this passage is badly written and from what I can tell the translators added some words to the Greek that muddy the meaning.
Again, the Revised says:
“But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification.”
This clarification makes it clear that Paul was not saying that the preaching of the Gospel was obscured but that instead they imparted the hidden wisdom of God in and THROUGH the preaching of the Gospel.
“We proclaim the Divine wisdom hidden in a mystery.”
Again Paul is not saying that their preaching was mysterious, nor that their doctrine was unintelligible; but he refers to the fact that this wisdom had been hidden in a mystery from men until that time, but was then revealed by the gospel.
Speaking of this gospel Paul says:
8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
Here the princes appear quite clearly to be the leaders of the Nation of Israel in place at the time of Christ.
Jesus said in Matthew 11:5 “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.
26 Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight.”
Interestingly, one of the reasons the masses didn’t believe on Jesus was that the rulers didn’t. This caused one to justify disbelief in Him to say in John 7:48;
“Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him?”
This ought to tell us something important about independent thought – it is a God given right and while the entire world of leaders and great minds may rant and rave in one direction do not believe for a moment that they are in possession of the truth.
But again, it was particularly bad to follow the leaders in place in Christ’s day because God Himself hid the gospel from their eyes.
Paul said in 2nd Corinthians 3:14 “But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.”
How long will or did the blindness last?
Paul says to the believers in Roman (at Romans 11:25)
“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.”
Many Christians believe that we are still in the age where the fulness of the Gentiles is still going and that when the fullness is achieved, at the arrival of Christ at His second coming, that the Jews will believe since the blindness is taken away at that time.
This theory of scripture does make some sense. Unfortunately, it has to ignore a boatload of contextual evidences that suggest that the fullness of that age of the Gentile – which was speaking of the Gospel going out to the gentiles before His return within a generation – and that all of Israel, at that day – who were truly Israel – had the scales fall, and were saved at the Revelation of the Messiah.
Let’s stop here.
Q and A
Prayer
