Lesson 2 of 1 Corinthians 2 Paul's Argument for Unity
The 1st Epistle of Paul to The Church @ Corinth
Lesson Two: Chapter 2-4 Paul’s Argument for Unity
Reminders of Tips for Study
Read the passage if at all possible twice before coming to class.
Take the paragraphs and try to summarize the main thought into your own sentence. You will notice as we read the book that Paul often gives a summary sentence that exposes his subject at the beginning of the paragraph.
Try to paraphrase long arguments in a way that summarizes the complete argument.
The Argument for Unity Continue
Let’s Follow the Argument
The Common Gospel is our first point of Unity
1-5 And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.[a] 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
Paul argues for the uniqueness of the Gospel
The message is unique
2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
The method is unique
4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power,
The Power of the message is unique
5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
A Common Revelation
6-10 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written:
“What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”[b]— the things God has prepared for those who love him— 10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.
Paul Argues that we have a Common Revelation
What we know is not what is known by others who are not a part of the family of faith.
He calls it a mystery and declares as proof of their lack of knowledge the fact that they crucified Christ, the very person whom all of the scriptures were about.
But we are unique because God has chosen us to receive the revelation.
A Common Source
10-16 The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.[c] 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. 15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?”[d] But we have the mind of Christ.
Paul argued that there are two Wisdoms
The wisdom of the world & The Wisdom of God.
It is by that which we understand that we are able to appraise or make judgements concerning matters in life.
Those who are spiritually minded can appraise or discern both, because the Spirit of God is with us.
The natural man is limited because he had not the spirit and cannot know the things of the Spirit. We are those who can judge all matters because of the Spirit in us.
We also are special because we cannot be judged as a result of the Spirit who resides in us.
