Last week, we learned how Paul and Sosthenes (Silas) organized 1 Corinthians, using many elements of Greek rhetoric in that letter. They also wrote an extended greeting, in which they dropped hints to the content within the letter that would follow. Further, although 1 Corinthians has two authors, it also has extended parts where Sosthenes is silent and Paul makes some strong, personal points.
Having just stated that all Christians are called into a “communion” with Christ (koinonia, vs. 9), Paul personally (the “I” is used, not the “we”) addresses division within the congregation at Corinth.
Internal Division, External Division
Read 1 Corinthians 1:10
Brothers: Adelphoi in the Greek (adelphos is the singular). A brother may refer to an actual brother within a family; it could also refer to a relative within in a family. For example: In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, Genesis 13:8 and 14:14 used adelphos to describe the relationship between Abraham and Lot, an uncle and nephew. In this passage, adelphoi refers to those in the congregation at Corinth: both male and female. Such are the many meanings of “brother.”
Although “brothers” in this passage also included women, the masculine gender of the word helps maintain the point that in Christ Jesus, all are “sons” of God through baptism and, thus, “brothers,” even if female (see Galatians 3:26). Being a “son,” by being baptized into Christ, (thus, also a “brother”) means that every Christian, whether male or female, will receive the full inheritance that God has for him–or her!–as a firstborn son because Jesus is the Firstborn (Luke 2:7).
- How can the Corinthian Christians “agree” (ESV), that is, to “say the same words” (lego is the word “word” as a verb)?
Read 1 Corinthians 11:11-16
- How did Paul even know about this dissension?
Chloe: Little is known about this woman, Chloe (a woman’s name), as Scripture does not mention her elsewhere. What we do know from history is that Chloe was a prominent woman in Corinth who hosted the Corinthian congregation in her home. What we can infer from Paul’s use of “Chloe’s people” is that they were her servants whom Chloe sent to inform Paul about what was taking place there.
- How were the Corinthians creating division among themselves? (We get a partial clue about some of this division by the names “Cephas” and “Apollos”).
- Using Christ’s crucifixion and baptism, how does Paul bring out the absurdity of their divisions?
- Why would Paul be glad that he had only baptized a few in Corinth? What would this have to do with the division taking place there?
Read 1 Corinthians 1:17
- If the Gospel does not derive its power “with words of eloquent wisdom,” then what is the source of its power?
- Contrary to how our human emotions may function, what does this say about what makes a man a powerful preacher?
Contrast and later wordplay: This verse contrasts the difference between the wisdom of words or eloquence, “wisdom of word” (sophia logou) and the word that has substance, even if it may not be eloquent: the “word of the cross.” 1 Corinthians will later contrast sophia logou, even using some “wordplay,” with the word of genuine wisdom (logos sophias) in 12:8, flipping the word order.
We must also remember that in the Old Covenant, death on a tree was connected with the curse of God (see Deuteronomy 21:22-23). The New Testament directly connected to that Old-Testament teaching when it referred to Jesus being crucified on a “tree” instead of a cross (Acts 5:30, 10:39, and 13:29; Galatians 3:13; and, 1 Peter 2:24). Paul dealt with that in Galatians 3:13, showing that Christ endured the tree of death, that curse, so we might receive the Holy Spirit.
Excursus: Wisdom
1 Corinthians uses the word “wisdom” 17 times; the rest of the New Testament, 34 times. Although 1 Corinthians is about 5.7% of the New Testament, when dealing with “wisdom,” it contains 1/3 of what the New Testament has to say on that subject!
In Gentile Greek thinking, since the time of Homer (1100 BC!), the Greek language used sophia to describe expertise in a particular knowledge or craft. It moved from there to mean general wisdom, especially wisdom dealing with human affairs. Wisdom teachers (sophists) traveled throughout Greece teaching their students what they needed to be successful in life, including rhetoric and public speaking.
However, Paul taps into Jewish “wisdom” thinking to contrast earthly wisdom with God’s wisdom. This was to point the Corinthians to where true wisdom lay, to counter what they had absorbed in their culture about “wisdom.” Paul pointed the Corinthians away from eloquent words that sounded powerful and moving to words with eternal power, even if they seemed to be empty of eloquence and rhetoric, thus, viewed as inferior.
Most of the “wisdom” thinking among 1st century Jews came from the Apocrypha, specifically Wisdom and Sirach. “Wisdom,” when described as the Word of God, had power to create the world (Proverbs 8:22-31, Wisdom 7:22, 9:1) and even directed aspects of human history for our salvation (Wisdom 10-11). Wisdom has its beginnings in eternity (Sirach 24:9), is described as the Word of God (Wisdom 9:1; Sirach 24:3), and received the Holy Spirit (Wisdom 9:17). (If some of this sounds messianic to you, pointing ahead to Jesus, you are correct!)
Paul tapped into those scriptural understandings, contrasting the wisdom from God against human, philosophical wisdom so pervasive in Greek culture. The New Testament shows Jesus Christ to be the divine Wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24) that God the Father gives to believers through the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 1:30; 2:7-13; Ephesians 1:17; Colossians 2:3). For that reason, God’s wisdom, which is the truth of Jesus Christ, even Jesus Himself, cannot be equated with the wisdom of Greek philosophers and thinkers, the wisdom of this world.
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True Wisdom
Read 1 Corinthians 1:18-19
- What is the word of the cross to those who are perishing?
- What is the word of the cross to those who are being saved?
- Discuss: What are the implications of Paul’s use of the present tense to describe both “those who are perishing” and “us who are being saved.”
In 1 Corinthians 1:19-31, we find snippets of Old-Testament thought woven into that passage to show the superiority of God’s wisdom over all forms of human wisdom. These passages include Isaiah 1:31, 29:14, 40:13, 52:15, and 64:4; Jeremiah 2:9 and 9:24; and, Sirach 1:10 and 2:16.
The World’s Wisdom
Read 1 Corinthians 1:20-25
In this section, Paul starts out directly referring to the Jewish Christian, then to the Gentile Christian, and then to both: “Where is the one who is wise?” (Greeks) Where is the scribe? (Jews) Where is the debater of this age?” (Both, as both were arguing against the other.) He leaves no one untouched by his words of censure, which continue in the rest of this section.
- If Jesus is “wisdom,” how can Paul say that “the world did not know God through wisdom”? (vs. 21)
This shows the need to understand words in their setting, also knowing the semantic range of words. In 1 Corinthians 1:21, Paul’s use of “wisdom” referred to human wisdom, not Jesus as the manifestation of wisdom.
- What does the world consider the preaching of Christ? (vs. 21)
- If it is true that the world sees the preaching of Christ as “folly” or a “stumbling block,” what does that say about making the Gospel “seeker sensitive”? What then is the solution?
- How is the preached Word not enough for those who demand “signs” or earthly “wisdom?
- Yet, what is it that can unite both Jew and Greek? (vs. 23-25)
Excursus: The Cross of Christ: A Non-Negotiable of Christ’s Church
People may consider the preached Word of Jesus as foolishness. Others may find themselves stumbling over that truth, that One can give us His life in His death. And yet, Paul remained undaunted to preach the “cross of Christ,” even if others found it offensive and foolish.
Why was Paul was so stubborn? Here’s why? Jesus:
- makes us righteous (justifies us) through His redemption of us on the cross (Romans 3:24-25),
- reconciles us to God and brings us into His Church (Ephesians 2:11-22),
- and cancels the debt of our sins (through baptism), by cancelling our record of debt on the cross (Colossians 2:9-15).
Because Christ has died, in Him, we also have died (2 Corinthians 5:14). The cross–and the ways Jesus brings what He did for us on the cross to us today–is how He cleanses and prepares His bride, the Church, for Himself (Ephesians 5:25-27).
Romans 6:3-5:
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
Through baptism, God the Holy Spirit unites us to Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection (Romans 6:3-5). Since Jesus rose to new life, so will we.
1 Corinthians 11:26: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup [in the Lord’s Supper], you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
In the Lord’s Supper, whenever we receive it, that act becomes a proclamation of not only Christ’s death on the cross, but also His return on the Last Day. This verse also shows us how central both events are to our salvation: They are the “bookends” of our salvation.
Jesus’ salvation for us on the cross is central to us His people. The “cross of Christ” is not just a set of facts for us to appropriate intellectually. The “cross of Christ” and what He did there is made real to us here and now—in the present tense, for those of “us who are being saved”—in the preaching of Christ crucified. In baptism, God the Holy Spirit connects us to Jesus’ death and resurrection. Thus, in baptism, our sins died with Jesus and we rise with Him to new life in His resurrection. When we receive the Lord’s Supper, it connects us to Jesus earning of our salvation on the cross AND His fulfilling that salvation for us on the Last Day.
John 6:53-54:
Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the Last Day.”
It’s no wonder that “Christ and Him crucified” was central to all that Paul did. It’s now wonder that “Christ and Him crucified” is still central to the Church today.
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God’s Use of the “Weak” in this World for our Salvation
Read 1 Corinthians 1:26-29
- How did Paul’s use the social status of most in the congregation at Corinth show how God does his powerful work through “weakness”?
- What does God bring to “nothing,” so no on may boast before God?
- What are the implications of this in our salvation?
Read 1 Corinthians 1:30-31
- Because of whom, why is someone “in Christ Jesus”?
- What does Jesus become for those who are in Him?
- Discuss our sanctification, our life of holiness, in Christ.
