Commentary on Paul’s Letters to the Corinthian Church
ARC Guide Level 1
Ideal for those getting acquainted with our thought process at Ammi Ruhama Community.
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach[b] to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
1 Corinthians 1:18-25 English Standard Version
Christ the Simplicity and Weakness of God
The news about the cross to the Jews was a sign that God had rejected Jesus and a logical impossibility that he could be a god to the Greeks who sought after wisdom. In all of their seeking for signs and seeking after wisdom both the Jews and the Greeks were blindsided by Christ. His message is completely removed from their respective preoccupations and so is seen as the rock that sent the Jews headlong while they were making some lofty connection in their minds and completely out of box insane for those who had spent their whole lives seeking after forms and logical consistency. Paul says that this is a fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy:
therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people, with wonder upon wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”
Isaiah 29:14 English Standard Version
When Jesus came on the scene in the full power of the Spirit of God it was outside of any of the Jew’s well discerned theories of who the Christ would be and what He would do. For the Greeks, seeing these flagrant violations of natural order, logic and wisdom but for it to work was astounding! Christ was the walking, talking repairman of the primary interface and nobody saw it coming but those who were personally told by God Himself that the Messiah had come quietly in the night in simplicity, and weakness.
Ammi Ruhama Community 