A Savior Who Died
1 Corinthians 2:1-16
Tony’s Overview Video
How to Use
Preparing to teach
- Read the Bible Lesson by Tony Cartledge in this month’s issue of the Nurturing Faith Journal
- Watch Tony’s Video for this session
- Select either the Adult or Youth teaching guide and follow the directions
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Key Verse: 1 Cor. 2:2 – For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
Speech is a powerful thing. Would anyone disagree? The words people use can bring comfort or inspiration – but also pain or despair. The power of speech can be amplified by rhetorical skills known to effective speakers or debaters.
While the Christians Paul addressed in Corinth were accustomed to oral debates in the public square, today’s “debates” are more typically played out in opinion columns, blogs, and Facebook posts.
Consider the plethora of political ads that jam the airways and internet each election season. Many are based on bogus facts, half-truths, and totally misleading accusations, yet many people find them convincing – especially if the ads’ claims match their own biases or preferences. It’s a sad reminder that speech can be used for good or bad. [DD]
A testimony to Christ (vv. 1-5)
The Apostle Paul was a highly skilled rhetorician, both in writing and in speech. We can be thankful that he focused those gifts on doing good, in declaring and defending the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul lived in a time and a place where cultural expectations such as the roles of women were different than ours, so we may not agree with him on every point. But we can always appreciate his efforts to incorporate a Jesus-centered worldview into all he said and did.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians to deal with conflict that arose from overconfident people pushing competing agendas. Paul insisted that his message was not based on human oratory, but focused on Christ alone. “I did not come proclaiming the mystery (or “testimony”) of God to you in lofty words or wisdom,” he said, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. (vv. 1-2). [DD]
The Corinthians were accustomed to hearing Greek orators or philosophers speak with impressive force, but Paul refused to be judged by style, polish, or rhetoric alone. He knew that the gospel of Christ does not make sense by human categories of logic, for the concept of a crucified God seems like so much foolishness to some people (1:18).
For example, sometime in the early history of the church, someone ridiculed a Christian believer by scratching a crude image into a plaster wall near Palatine Hill in Rome. It portrayed a man looking up in worship to a donkey-headed man on a cross. A crude inscription labels it “Alexamenos and his god.” [DD]
Paul knew the concept of a crucified savior might seem laughable to the world (1:18-25), but he remained determined to focus on Jesus. He did not fashion his testimony in the elegant speech of an orator, but in the wondrous amazement of a sinner who had been saved by grace and who could speak of it only “. . . in weakness and in fear and in much trembling” (v. 3).
Paul understood that rational arguments alone would be largely ineffective. He was more concerned that people experience the presence and power of God than simply gain knowledge about God. Thus, he said, “My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God” (vv. 4-5). [DD]
What convincing “demonstration of the Spirit and of power” did Paul have in mind? His preaching in Corinth must have been accompanied by an outpouring of the Spirit that manifested itself in a variety of ways, including miracles of healing, speaking in tongues, other spiritual gifts. Unfortunately, the Corinthians had managed to turn those gifts into a source of conflict, too (see chapters 12-14).
Paul would also have credited the Spirit with the outbreak of faith among the Corinthians. The growth of the church, like the salvation of the sinner, is the work of God, the fruit of God’s empowering Spirit. [DD] [DD]
The mystery of Christ (vv. 6-13)
With v. 6, Paul shifted gears, and interpreters have struggled mightily with understanding what follows. A surface reading suggests that Paul turned to the subject of Christian maturity, promising that he did in fact have additional mysteries to share with those who were spiritually mature.
That would contradict what Paul had written in 1:18-2:5, however, for there he insisted that believers have no need of esoteric mysteries, but should focus on the crucified Christ alone.
It may be best to read these verses as irony or sarcasm in which Paul was saying something to the effect of, “You want mystery? I’ll give you mystery!” He had already insisted that God’s secret is subsumed in the cross of Christ, and that was all the mystery anyone needed. (For more on this, see “The Hardest Question” online).
Whether Paul turned to irony or simply adopted his opponents’ terminology to bolster his own case, he may have been responding to criticism that his gospel message was too simplistic – that he had not revealed deep mysteries of Christ that others claimed to know.
Criticism of Paul’s straightforward teaching could have been fueled by the popularity of Jewish apocalypticism, which looked to ancient prophecies for secret revelations of a new age, or by the people’s familiarity with mystery religions that initiated members through clandestine ceremonies and mystic rituals.
Other critics may have promoted an incipient heresy we know as Gnosticism, which claimed that persons could ascend to higher spiritual realms by attaining secret knowledge (gnosis).
It is also possible that some Corinthians had been more impressed with the teaching of Peter and Apollos (see 1:12; 3:4) than with Paul’s plain-spoken version of the gospel.
So, what did Paul mean by “Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish” (v. 6)?
Some of the Corinthians evidently considered themselves to be more mature than others, but Paul spoke to all of them as spiritual infants (3:1). Perhaps we should understand Paul’s use of “mature” to be in quotation marks, a sarcastic setup before calling them babies in 3:1.
Whether we read his tone as ironic or not, Paul insisted that the “wisdom of this age,” the human attempt to make sense out of life, was of little use.
Paul’s reference to “this age” is a reminder that he saw salvation in eschatological terms. He spoke often about the import of the cross, but not to argue for a particular theory explaining the atonement. Rather, Paul saw Christ’s crucifixion as introducing a new age. Those who still belonged to “this age,” whether wise or powerful, were doomed to perish. Those who trusted Christ, however, belonged to the new and eternal era.
Paul contended that the “secret and hidden” wisdom that God “decreed before the ages” (v. 7) was not some arcane knowledge revealed to a few, but was God’s plan of salvation for all that had been revealed and accomplished through Christ.
Jesus had made the once-hidden purpose of God manifest, Paul said, but “the rulers of this age” did not understand God’s plan, or else they would not have crucified Christ (v. 8). [DD]
There could be no greater truth or deeper secret than this, Paul argued – no more important bit of knowledge than the message that Christ died for our salvation. The Corinthians would do well to grasp this truth rather than demanding deeper knowledge.
Understanding v. 9 is problematic. Paul introduced an Old Testament citation in his typical manner (“as it is written . . .”), but what he quoted – “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him” – appears to be quite freely adapted from Isa. 64:4: “From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God beside you, who works for those who wait for him.” [DD]
We should not overlook Paul’s substitution of the word “love” for “wait.” God’s eternal gift is not for those who gain wisdom or speak with eloquence, but for those who love God. And those who understand God best are not those who learn from human teachers, but from the indwelling Spirit of God (v. 10).
Just as we know ourselves better than anyone else when we’re in touch with our own spirit, Paul added, so no one fully understands God except from God’s own Spirit (v. 11).
It is the Spirit of God, not of the world, that introduces us to deeper realms of faith and to the reality of our spiritual gifts (v. 12). Appreciating the deeper mysteries of God is not a matter of deep knowledge, but of deep faith and openness to God’s Spirit. Spiritual things cannot be communicated in logical categories, but in the common ground known to those who experience God’s Spirit (v. 13). [DD]
We don’t live in ancient Corinth, but if we want to follow Jesus’ way, Paul’s message speaks to us, too. Have we experienced new life through the power of Christ? Have we continued to grow in wisdom and grace through communion with God’s Spirit as well as through Bible study and worship? Do we live with a “Jesus worldview?”
If we have a hard time answering, what does that suggest for our future spiritual growth?
Adult Teaching Resources
Download the PDF of teaching resources for this lesson.
This PDF contains the Teaching Guide, Digging Deeper, and Hardest Question pages.
Read Scripture online: 1 Corinthians 2:1-16
Youth Teaching Resources
Parent Prep
We can’t get around the fact that there are so many influences on the lives of our students. We can try parent controls on the tv, online, and on their phones, but they still interact with the world around them at school and with their friends. Maybe the answer isn’t to stop all their influences but to help them filter what their hear through different lenses. Challenge your students on what filters that experience life through. What are the first filters that they use?
Additional Links/Resources
Read Scripture online: 1 Corinthians 2:1-16
Download the PDF for youth teaching resources using the button below. This PDF contains the Teaching Guide for this lesson:
Video
Encourage youth to check out this video ahead of the lesson.
“Persuasion” from The Big Bang Theory
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