Paul’s preaching at Corinth
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📚And I, brethren, when I came to you declaring to you the testimony of God, I did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom 📖, 2 📚for I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.2:2 Paul came to Corinth directly from Athens which prided itself on being the world’s center of philosophy and wisdom (Acts 17:15; 18:1). He realized afresh how important it was to keep to the heart of the gospel. And the heart of the gospel is Christ, Christ crucified for the sins of men. If any preacher gets away from this he is moving away from the very center of God’s revelation, and he is in danger of having a weak and ineffective ministry (though it may be successful in the eyes of men).⚜
3 📚And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.
2:3 He was not afraid of what men might do to him. Rather he feared that the people in Corinth might be as indifferent to the gospel as the “wise” men of Athens, and that his preaching might fail because of a lack in him. Weakness and trembling in any preacher are better by far than self-confidence, dependence on intellect, or a careless attitude. Compare 2 Cor 12:9-10.⚜
4 📚And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
2:4 See 1 Cor 1:17. Paul was capable of using wise and persuasive words if he thought the occasion required them (Acts 17:22-31). But he knew the two most important elements in preaching were to have the right message and the power of God’s Spirit to deliver it. It is quite possible for preachers even with the right message to try to talk people into God’s kingdom and fail to achieve this because of a lack of God’s power. So see Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8; Eph 5:18. People are not saved and established in the faith by being impressed with the wisdom or eloquence of the preacher, but by trusting Christ.⚜
5 📚so that your faith would not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
2:5 True faith must be created in people’s hearts by the power of God’s Spirit. If they base their faith on the wisdom or eloquence of a preacher or merely on his convincing arguments, it will be superficial and fall short of the faith which brings salvation. The Christian faith is reasonable, but arguments for it directed to the reason alone will not bring new life to the heart of anyone. Christ’s servants must proclaim Christ and His cross with the power of God sent down from heaven.⚜
God’s Spirit gives God’s wisdom
6 📚However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, but not the wisdom of this age, or of the rulers of this age, that comes to nothing. 7 📚But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God ordained for our glory before the world began,
2:6-7 Paul does not want his readers to think he is praising ignorance, or that when it comes to wisdom believers in Christ are nowhere. They have available to them God’s secret wisdom, unknown to the wise and powerful of this world (1 Cor 1:30; Col 2:2-3). On “wisdom” see also Ps 51:6; 90:12; 111:10; Prov 1:7, 20; 2:1-6; 3:13; 8:1-36; 9:10; Eph 1:17; Jam 1:5. Before the creation of the universe God foreknew and chose His people (Rom 8:29-30), and He ordained that they should have the highest of all wisdom – the knowledge of God and of Christ.⚜
8 📚which none of the rulers of this world knew. For if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory 📖. 9 📚But as it is written,
Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
nor have entered the heart of man,
the things which God has prepared
for those who love him.
2:9 Isa 64:4 has similar but not these exact words.⚜
10 📚But God has revealed them to us by his Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
2:10 The wisdom Paul speaks of cannot be found out by man’s intellect or philosophical reasoning, or by searching into religion or mysticism or the occult. God reveals it by His Spirit. There is no other way to receive it. Compare John 16:13-15. And the only way to receive God’s Spirit is by believing in Jesus Christ.⚜
11 📚For what man knows the things of a man, except the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.
2:11 No one can know what God is thinking unless He reveals it, but the Holy Spirit can know it because He is God. This verse teaches that God’s Spirit is not some impersonal influence or power. He is a person Who has knowledge and can reveal it (v 10).⚜
12 📚Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is of God, so that we might know the things that are freely given to us by God.
2:12 The world (mankind in general in its fallen sinful condition) does not have God’s Spirit and cannot receive Him (John 14:16-17). Believers in Christ have received God’s Spirit (Acts 2:38; 5:32; Gal 3:14; Eph 1:13), and can know what others cannot possibly know (v 14).⚜
13 📚These things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual 📖.
2:13 Observe Paul’s emphasis on “words”. God’s Spirit had given the apostles the very words that expressed God’s truth, and not merely general ideas in the mind. Compare Matt 4:4; 5:18; 2 Tim 3:16.⚜
14 📚But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually evaluated.
2:14 See 1 Cor 1:18, 23; Rom 8:5-8. If we would accept and understand God’s truth it is absolutely essential that God’s Spirit teach us. So Eph 1:15-19. “Natural” = unsaved.⚜
15 📚But he who is spiritual properly evaluates all these things, yet he himself is not properly evaluated 📖 by any man.
2:15 1 John 2:20, 27; 3:8. Only believers in Christ made spiritual by God’s Spirit can see the true state of things and people. But those without the Spirit will not understand Christ’s people and so will be unable to rightly evaluate them. Proper judgment must be based on spiritual understanding, and this no one has by nature.⚜
16 📚For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.
2:16 Isa 40:13. This is given as evidence of the above truths. Natural men (those without God’s Spirit) cannot know God’s mind and so they cannot understand the mind of believers. This is because believers no longer think like people of the world. They share in God’s mind through Christ. This does not mean that believers know all that Christ knows. It does mean that because Christ is in them, and they have His Spirit, they are at the source of God’s truth, and He can enable them to understand it. Is this true only of apostles and great and wise Christian leaders? No, it is true of all spiritual believers (1 Cor 1:26-28). Education, great intellectual ability, and human wisdom have nothing to do with it. God’s Spirit giving understanding to man’s spirit – this is the great essential. Observe that all through this passage of Scripture God’s Spirit is seen to be different from man’s spirit. This is the teaching of God’s Word everywhere. See notes at John 14:17; Rom 8:9, 16; Gal 3:2; Eph 4:18; Jude 19.⚜