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1 Corinthians: Chapter 2, Verse 4
“And my speech, and my preaching, etc.]” As he determined, so he acted. As the subject matter of his ministry was not any of the liberal arts and sciences, or the philosophy and dry morality of the Gentiles, but salvation by a crucified Christ; so his style, his diction, his language used in preaching, “was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom;” With technical words, words of art, contrived by human wisdom to captivate the affections; and with bare probable arguments only, a show of reason to persuade the mind to an assent, when nothing solid and substantial is advanced, only a run of words artfully put together, without any strength of argument in them; a method used by the false teachers, and which the…
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1 Corinthians: Chapter 2, Verse 3
“And I was with you in weakness, etc.]” Meaning either the weakness of his bodily presence, the contemptibleness of his voice, and the mean figure he made as a preacher among them, both with respect to the matter and manner of his ministry in the eyes of many; or his lowly and humble deportment among them, not exerting the power and authority Christ had given him as an apostle; but choosing rather to work with his own hands, as he did at Corinth, to minister to his own necessities, and those of others; or the many persecutions which he endured there for the sake of preaching a crucified Christ; and which he sometimes calls “infirmities”; (see 2 Corinthians 12:9,10) wherefore it is added, “and in…
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1 Corinthians: Chapter 2, Verse 2
“For I determined not to know anything among you, etc.]” This was a resolution the apostle entered into before he came among them, that though he was well versed in human literature, and had a large compass of knowledge in the things of nature, yet would make known nothing else unto them, or make anything else the subject of his ministry, “save Christ, and him crucified:” He had a spiritual and experimental knowledge of Christ himself, and which he valued above all things else; and this qualified him to make him known to others; and which knowledge he was very willing and ready to communicate by preaching the Gospel, which is the means of making known Christ as God’s salvation to the souls of men;…
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1 Corinthians: Chapter 2, Verse 1
“And I, brethren, when I came to you, etc.]” This account the apostle gives of himself is occasioned, either by what he had said in the latter part of the preceding chapter, concerning the choice God has made of the foolish, weak, base, and despicable things of the world, and of his calling them by his grace both to fellowship with the saints in common, and therefore he accommodated his ministry unto them, and in particular to the ministry of the word, of which he himself was a like instance and an example; or else by what he had declared in (1 Corinthians 1:17) of the same chapter, that he was sent to preach the Gospel, “not with wisdom of words;” Which he here reassumes,…
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1 Corinthians: Chapter 2, Introduction
The apostle, in this chapter, pursues the same argument as before, that the Gospel needed not the wisdom and art of men: this he illustrates by his own example; and then he extols the Gospel above all the wisdom of men; and observes how it comes to be made known to men, even by the Spirit of God: hence it follows, that it is to be taught in his words, and not in the words of men; and that it can be only known and judged of by the spiritual, and not by the natural man. He instances in himself, and in his own ministry, when at Corinth, where he preached the Gospel in a plain and simple manner, without using the ornaments of speech,…
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1 Corinthians: Chapter 1, Verse 31
“That, according as it is written, etc.]” (Jeremiah 9:23,24). “He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord;” Not in his own wisdom, riches, and strength; but in Christ, as his wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
