1 Corinthians 2

     2:1-5.  Paul is still addressing the divisions in the church.  How can this be, when there was only one message preached?  Paul didn’t try to gather a loyal following to himself.  He came in weakness and fear, and preached only “Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (2).  If anyone was convinced, it could only have been by the power of the Spirit of God.

     2:6-13.  The shift to first person plural pronouns (we, us) is in reference back to 1:12.  Paul means “we” who are apostles and bear the one message of God (cf. 1:12; 3:4-6, 22; 4:1, 6, 9).

     This is a defense of the apostolic message, not of its messengers.  Do the Corinthians desire wisdom, and the revelation of deep mysteries?  To those who are mature, the message the apostles have is the secret of the ages.  It is the eternal covenant by which God predestined to save a people for himself (7), and to demonstrate his power to all creation by doing it through the weakness and foolishness of the cross.  This is a thing unimaginable to the wisest and strongest of this age (8-9; cf.1:21-25).

     The apostles have a message they could not have invented or taught to each other.  The insight they have into the hidden mind of God could not have come from the world.  It was freely given to them by the Spirit of God (10-13).

     2:14-16.  The depth of meaning in Jesus Christ, and him crucified, who can know?  The natural man is unable to accept, and cannot understand the apostles’ message (14).  He sees only weakness and death in it, a vanity of all vanities.  These things are only understood by spiritual appraisal of the mind of God himself.  But we apostles, Paul says, in the message we have been given, have the mind of Christ (15-16).