I Corinthians 2:1-16 offer an argument against love of human wisdom. Paul methodically contrasts how he frames his message with the style of contemporary rhetoricians the Corinthians would have known. He also offers a memorable summary of the gospel whose source is rooted in the ancient plan of God that earthly rulers did not recognize. Finally, he affirms that the disciples in Corinth could believe his message because the Spirit of God had revealed the gospel to him. Among the issues I am sorting through is that Paul is aware of classical Greek philosophy in general and its rhetorical theory in particular. We see this in his letters. Thus, his self-deprecation of his preaching style may be a tool he uses to make his point. In any case, in the process of making his point, in an important way he clarifies the event nature of truth as he understood it, revealed in the cross of Christ and to which we turn because the Spirit has opened us up in a corresponding event in us.
In I Corinthians 2:1-5, Paul contrasts human wisdom from the gospel of salvation by using his own preaching as a prime example of the love God has of folly. 1 When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery (μαρτύριον or testimony) of God to you in lofty words or wisdom (σοφίας). Paul becomes an example of the difference between divine and human wisdom. Paul did not want to enter a competition with master orators. It was more important to proclaim the mystery of God. He did not rest his preaching on the false wisdom of the art of persuasion. 2For I decided to know nothing among you, in terms of the content of his message, except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. The person and work of Christ comprise the essence of the preaching of Paul. He “bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24). He gave himself for our sins to set us free (Galatians 1:4). God reconciled all things to himself through Jesus, “by making peace through the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20). Looking toward his own death, Jesus said, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). He did it to show us how much he loves us, saying, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). The aorist tense may suggest the decision was made in Corinth. The experience of Paul at Athens, where philosophers gave him a hearing and largely rejected him, had nothing to do with what Paul says here.[1] If we are going to be ignorant of something, we who preach and teach must not be ignorant of this. If you know the Crucified, you know enough to find your place in the plan of God. If you do not know this, all of the other knowledge you have may not be able to keep you from misery.[2] The church that takes offense at the cross thinks it must come up with some philosophical grounding for the readiness of humanity for God. Too many religious movements have failed at this point. They have turned preaching into a harmless game where they do not proclaim Christ at all. It becomes a harmful game when there is nothing true to follow. They have forgotten genuine preaching and proclamation for the sake of the game.[3] 3 And I came to you with a preaching style in weakness. In I Corinthians 4:9-13 he acknowledges that all apostles have become weak and considered rubbish. In II Corinthians 6:4-10 he acknowledges that he has come to them in the midst of persecution and as having nothing. In II Corinthians 12:7-10 he points out that one affliction, his thorn in the flesh and a messenger of Satan, he prayed intensely for its removal, but the answer was the grace of God was sufficient, so that when he is weak, he is strong. He understands his experience with personal weakness as part of his identification with Christ. Further, he came to them with a preaching style that was in fear and in much trembling. No other textual clues help pinpoint what Paul meant specifically by describing himself as coming before the Corinthians in this way. In fact, neither the Pauline corpus nor the book of Acts supports such a literal claim. For instance, consider Paul’s speech at the Areopagus in Athens or his defense before Felix and Agrippa (cf. Acts 17:16-31; 24:1-21; 26:1-29; moreover, in Lystra the Lycaonians called Paul “Hermes because he was the chief speaker,” Acts 14:12). One possibility is that Paul appeared “weak” and fearful when the Corinthians compared his oratory style to that of contemporary philosophers. Another possibility to consider is that Paul is speaking sarcastically or tongue-in-cheek, to use a familiar metaphor, due to a label that some antagonistic members in the Corinthian community had applied to him. Thus, rather than debating his accusers Paul cleverly adopts the opinion of his opponents to press his case that the gospel is not dependent on skilled rhetoric. Paul will acknowledge he is a fool for the sake of Christ while they are wise (4:10) and that he came to them with truthful speech and the power of God (II Corinthians 6:7). 4 My speech and my proclamation (κήρυγμά) were not with plausible words of wisdom (σοφίας), thereby dismissing any personal claims to eloquence, but with a demonstration (by God in Jesus Christ and not something additional to that[4]) of the Spirit and of power, thereby reminding his readers of his authority, 5 so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power (δυνάμεως) of God. If we take him as using the opinions of some in Corinth against them, even using them sarcastically, Paul is not actually conceding that his speech and proclamation are weak and full of trepidation. Rather, he is making use of their specious characterizations to bolster his assertion that the foundation of their faith is the power of God and the revelation of the Spirit. Obviously, any listeners who came to accept the truth of Christ through Paul's preaching were brought there strictly by the "power of God" and not through human expertise. At the same time, we know Paul was aware of the Greek philosophical tradition. As I read these words, Paul is setting up his readers for the point that they may not be as spiritually advanced as they think, and that Paul may have more wisdom than they think. His readers may not be as wise and sophisticated as they think, and Paul may not be as devoid of wisdom as some of them think. In any case, false wisdom has the objective of the art of persuasion. The physical condition of Paul may have been the way God chose to make his preaching conform externally and internally to the cross. The spirit of God moved hearers, not eloquence. The words of the apostle against "lofty" speech suggest that Paul is arguing against the allure of eloquence, not some harebrained notions or high-minded ideas. The entire wisdom of God is the cross. The cross stands alone against any attempts by sophia or any other human wisdom to make sense of God's ways and means in the world. The cross epitomizes the saving power of God, a concept human wisdom just cannot grasp. Imagine how difficult it must have been for the wisdom-loving Corinthians to hear this message. Not only were they enamored of their human abilities, but as Gentiles these Corinthians also had no cultural background to help them understand salvation as a fulfillment of the promises God made to Israel through the Abrahamic covenant.
In I Corinthians 2:6-9, Paul attacks wisdom in a subtle way. The apostle "talks their talk" in 2:6-16 only to squash their self-deluding pretensions in 3:1-4. 6 Yet among the mature (τελείοις) we (acknowledging Paul is part of a larger community that preaches the crucified Christ) do speak wisdom (Σοφίαν). In 3:1-4, Paul reveals that they are not the "mature" believers they suppose themselves to be. Indeed, they are not ready to hear Paul's sophia because they are "infants" whom Paul must spoon-feed on a strict milk diet. An important observation here is that Paul is recognizing gradations in Christian experience. He at least opens the door for a discussion of stages of spiritual growth, even as human beings go through stages of infancy, childhood, adolescence, young adult, older adult, and even various stages of retired life. Paul has wisdom, though it is not a wisdom (σοφίαν) of this age or of the (political, economic, and religious) rulers of this age, Paul sarcastically comparing the wisdom of God with that of the world, for the rulers are doomed to perish. Those who really understood would know this is philosophy of the highest kind. Wisdom will resist intelligence. Wisdom requires a spiritual state in which we hold out for meaning rather than settling for mere answers. Wisdom is partially hidden, revealing itself only to those who want it and will not try to make a commodity of it.[5] 7 But we speak God's wisdom (σοφίαν), secret (μυστηρίῳ, the wisdom of God being the mystery) and hidden (ἀποκεκρυμμένην), which God decreed before the ages (see Daniel 2:18-19, 27-28, where God is the one who reveals mysteries to Daniel, language that becomes part of traditional Jewish apocalyptic language) for our glory (δόξαν). Paul is defining the wisdom of God as having an eschatological dimension. Yet, in a preposterous way, this eschatological wisdom has appeared here and now. The political, economic, and religious rulers of this age unwittingly serve the eschatological plans of God. Paul is using the apocalyptic term “mystery” for the plan of salvation in accord with the wisdom of God. The term would become important in the notion that Paul had of revelation.[6] “Mystery” is the divine plan of history that God kept hidden from humanity and will receive final revelation but is now open to believers.[7] Paul is identifying the mystery with the gospel, the word of the cross, and not some secret teaching. The “mature” believer understands this. 8 None of the (political, economic, and religious) rulers of this age (who conspired in the death of Jesus) understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory, who has exposed and revealed the plan of God. The political, religious, and economic rulers of his time unwittingly became part of the eschatological plan of God. Their wisdom conspired against them in discerning the wisdom of God. We can see the divine attribute of patience here is close to the wisdom of God that is at work in the sending of the crucified Lord of glory. The wisdom of God hidden from the world finds expression in the historical plan that through the Spirit whom Christ gives is manifest in anticipation of the outcome of history. We know the wisdom of God as we know this counsel of God and its past and ongoing execution.[8] 9 But, as it is written, (Isaiah 64:4 or the Apocalypse of Elijah) "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him." The rare times when Paul mentions love of God he sees it as a mark of believers.[9]Paul can rightly call believers, that is, those who have faith, as those who love God. In that sense, faith, with its value as trust, may describe better than “love” the relation between believer and God.[10]
In I Corinthians 2:10-16 Paul uses the language and categories of wisdom among the Corinthians to reveal how the divine Spirit, not human wisdom, announced the end-plans of God. Instead of celebrating human capabilities, Paul uses wisdom language to spell out the function of the Spirit in revealing the ultimate plans of God. If the event nature of truth focuses upon an historical event, the crucified Jesus of Nazareth who was also the Lord of glory, then a corresponding event needs to occur in some persons who hear this kerygma or preaching. God has promised that there would be such people as Paul describes here who have faith in the Word.[11] 10 These things God has revealed (ἀπεκάλυψεν) to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. Paul insists that it takes the Spirit of God, not some sophia spirit, to reveal the redemptive resolve of God to those who hear. The Spirit is the bridge between humanity and God. Some of the thought processes of God actually enter the person so that people can comprehend at least some of the purpose of God. The Spirit is the one who enables hearers to trust human words. Paul directly implies the deity of the spirit here.[12] The Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God, the work of the Spirit leading people into the truth of God that is manifest in the Son.[13] Without this revelatory event in the hearer, the revelatory event of the crucified Lord of glory would have been an abstract and empty event of the past. 11 For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit (πνεῦμα τοῦ ἀνθρώπου) that is within? Paul uses “pneuma” here as an element of the natural constitution of every human being.[14] Within every human being is the human spirit that is the basis for human beings to know what is human. So also no one comprehends what is truly God's except the Spirit (Πνεῦμα) of God. Distinguished from the human spirit within us all is the working of the divine spirit. It seems as if Paul took it as self-evident that the spirit at work within human beings derives from the Spirit of God. Broadly speaking, the human spirit is an essential aspect of what it is to be human. The human spirit derives from the life-giving Spirit of God. This connection suggests that the Spirit of God comes in a friendly way to the human spirit in order to lift up the human spirit toward God.
Here are some notes on this matter that may lead the reader to move in a different direction. Paul here sets the human spirit and divine spirit in opposition. Did he see a divinely given spirit that is finally alien to us? E. Schweizer takes this view, doing so against Bultmann.[15] Alternatively, did he make his statements on the self-evident presupposition that the spirit at work in creatures derives from the Spirit of God? If so, we would expect this presupposition to receive a statement in connection with Genesis 2:7. However, that is not the case. Paul did not say that the Spirit of God breathed a living soul into the first Adam. He mentioned the life-giving Spirit, not at the creation of the first human being, but as a distinctive feature of the eschatological human being. However, how is it that the natural person, who is after the manner of the first Adam, can be or have spirit if God created him only as a living soul without the Spirit, God reserving the Spirit for the eschatological human being? An answer can come only by going beyond the statements of Paul and explore their material unity, with the idea that the spirit is an essential part of human beings or human souls.[16]
We can apply all this to the context of the argument Paul is making. If the word of the cross is fundamental to who God is, then we must acknowledge that it can be difficult to get inside God’s head and determine what God is thinking. Paul is suggesting that as "like reveals like" it takes the Spirit of God working in those who hear to reveal the inner workings of the mind of God. Paul's language here undoubtedly sounded familiar to the Corinthians. But he grounds his assertions in the revelation that the crucified Lord of glory fulfilled the redemptive purposes of God. These insightful verses also move us toward Trinitarian reflections. The Son is the revelation of the mystery, but the Spirit is the one who opens human beings to receive its truth. Thus, one cannot arrive at the Trinity by an abstract rational principle, but only based on the revelation of the Son and Spirit. Yes, the Trinity is part of the mystery of God, but that does not absolve us from the duty of finding a basis for the doctrine in the witness of scripture to revelation.[17] Paul here witnesses to the idea that God is spirit, but this does not necessitate the later platonic notion of mind.[18] 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world (πνεῦμα τοῦ κόσμου), but the Spirit (πνεῦμα) that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed (χαρισθέντα) on us by God. For Paul, baptism and the gift of the Spirit come together.[19] 13 And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom (σοφίας) but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual. 14 Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God's Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Even the Spirit of God speaks what sounds like folly to all human-based spirits of wisdom. 15 Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else's scrutiny. Verses like this, that emphasize the immediacy of each believer to God and the resultant empowering for one’s own independent judgment is the basis in Martin Luther for the notion of the priesthood of believers.[20] 16 "For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ. When we consider the work of the Spirit broadly in judgment and transfiguration, the Spirit enables us to judge ourselves and others.[21] The kerygma focused upon the crucified Lord of glory has dignity and validity in itself. God is knowable because of the revelation of who God is in the cross and because the life-giving Spirit of God has kinship with the human spirit. The point is that the knowability of God does not rest in our hands, but rather, in the working of the Spirit of God. [22]
[1] Orr & Walther.
[2] Whatever, therefore, you are ignorant of, be not ignorant of this. If you know Christ, and him crucified, you know enough to make you happy, supposing you know nothing else; and without this, all your other knowledge cannot keep you from being everlastingly miserable. -George Whitfield
[3] Barth, Church Dogmatics II.1 [26.2] 146-7. In a discussion of the readiness of humanity for God, Barth directs us to this passage to say that the church takes offense at the cross when it thinks this way. He thinks the question is whether Christian theology and proclamation have really proclaimed the cross of Christ to the congregation and the world, or whether the offence taken at them is not the customary and justified annoyance at the fact that they declare facts that are not true. It assumes some notion of the Christian person that one cannot sustain and is an illusion. He thinks the sign of the Christian person as ready for God is the great reinterpretation of the individual ready for God. When theology and church tell this story, when religious movements of revival are chapters in this story, when their invitation is to become part of such a story, they ought not to hide behind this passage if they fail. Actually, they have cause for more alarm if they fail, for they have not really proclaimed the cross of Christ at all. He grants that such persons who present such a story may play a harmless game. It becomes criminal and hurtful if there is nothing to follow and the real task of proclamation and theology forgotten for the name of the game. His point is that in the midst of the acknowledged need of each person for grace, our readiness for God is such that rather than say Yes, we say No.
[4] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1 [62.1] 650.
[5] Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi (Franciscan Media: 2014), 247.
[6] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 211.
[7] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 40.
[8] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 441.
[9] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 185. On the rarity of the phrase in Paul, see tDNT, I, 51, 53.
[10] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 189.
[11] Barth, Church Dogmatics I.1 [6.4] 241.
[12] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 303.
[13] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 395.
[14] See Robertson & Plummer, Orr & Walther, Homiletics for January and February 1999.
[15] TDNT, VI, 435.
[16] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 187.
[17] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 298.
[18] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 371.
[19] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 240.
[20] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 128.
[21] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 623.
[22] Barth, Church Dogmatics I.1 [6.2] 196-8. I differ from Barth here. - The word of God does not receive its dignity and validity from a presupposition that we bring to it. Its truth for us has its ground in itself. We have self-certainty based upon the certainty of God. In a sense, we begin with the certainty of God without waiting for validation. Theology must adopt this procedure. People can know the Word of God because God wills it so. If one wants to call the problem of the knowability of the Word of God an anthropological problem, the reference must be to a theological anthropology. The question is not how humanity in general can know the Word of God. Rather, the Word of God speaks to a specific person. The question is how such people to whom God addresses this Word can know it. The answer must be that they can do so only by the Word. Therefore, one can attach a definite affirmative to the knowability of the Word of God, but only in reference to the event of the Word. Knowability does not rest in our hands, but in God.
liked this Never thought about Paul's comments on wisdom in this way nor his preaching
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