I came across another translation issue. I found this one quite humorous. In an essay about the creation of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Bruce Metzger writes about the translation committee's difficulty with the Hebrew word miknas. It refers to the special underwear of the priests as described in Exodus 28:42. This word is rendered as “breeches” in the King James Version. The committee thought that was misleading since the garment covered the priest's body from the waist to the thighs. They eventually settled on “undergarments” after considering several other possibilities: drawers, underpants, shorts, and skivvies. I'm amused by the picture of these PhDs in Hebrew sitting around talking about underwear.

Modern science is based on induction. Our fundamental scientific laws are arrived at through observation. The law of gravity predicts that when I drop a pencil it will fall to the floor. It does not guarantee this. We are only assuming that what has happened in the past will continue to happen in the future. The law of gravity is based on our experiences with the natural world. We cannot simply deduce that an object dropped must move toward the earth.

When I first encountered inductive logic in my mathematical education, I did not trust it. It seemed too soft. I wanted cold, hard deduction. All of my mathematics up to that point had relied on deduction. I knew I could depend on it. Induction involved positing that a statement was true for one or two specific cases and then showing it was true in the general case based on those assumptions. It took a while, but I finally appreciated the power of induction. Its power is determined by the reliability of the assumptions. Since most mathematics is axiomatic, the assumptions can be shown to be true.

“Say to Hezekiah king of Judah: Do not let the god you depend on deceive you when he says, ‘Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.’ Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, destroying them completely. And will you be delivered? Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my forefathers deliver them: the gods of Gozan, Haran, Rezeph and the people of Eden who were in Tel Assar? Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, or of Hena or Ivvah?” - 2 Kings 19:10-13 NIV

Those are the words that Sennacherib, King of Assyria, sent to Hezekiah as his army was preparing to attack Jerusalem. He was appealing to the logic of induction. Just as the other armies had fallen, just as their gods had failed them, so would the LORD fail to protect his people. There was just one flaw to his proof. The God of Israel is not like the gods of Gozan and Haran. His fundamental assumption that all gods are alike proved to be incorrect. The king of Assyria learned this lesson within one night through the destruction of his army. It does not appear he took this to heart since he was later assassinated by his sons while worshipping in the temple of his god Nisroch. Induction is powerful - when based on solid assumptions.

In A Visit to Vanity Fair, Alan Jacobs makes an interesting observation about interpreting Matthew 18:1-4. In this passage, Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Jacobs points out that a common understanding of this verse is that we are suppose to have a child-like faith. He believes this interpretation ignores the immediate context of the verse which which is focused on humility. And Jacob does not think this means having the humility of a child but suggests that it means considering oneself to have the worldly status of a child. He goes on to say that children are not very humble by nature and that this was the normal view of biblical commentators down through the ages. The status interpretation also fits well with the notion of the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

I just finished reading Jack, a biography of C.S. Lewis by George Sayer. Early in his career at Oxford, Lewis was studying the New Testament in the original Greek (he was either an atheist or deist then). One of the aspects of the gospels that convinced him that they were historical rather than legend was their unimaginative literary style. They did not read like the myths and legends that Lewis had studied so much in his academic work.

The following is a public service announcement from the Society for Literal, Context-Free Hermeneutics:

We know why God gave us the Good Book. It serves as a guidebook to life — a set of rules to be obeyed. There is no part of life that is not directly addressed by at least one verse if we will only look for it. And yet when we go looking for a car to get us to church potluck dinners and committee meetings, we ignore the wisdom that God has for us.

Let us consider 2 Chronicles 1:16-17: “And Solomon had horses imported from Egypt and Keveh; the king’s merchants bought them in Keveh at the current price. They also acquired and imported from Egypt a chariot for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for one hundred and fifty.”

So we see that the Scriptures are crystal clear on this topic. We must purchase foreign cars even as Solomon imported foreign horses and chariots. For what were horses and chariots in those days but means of conveyance as automobiles are to us today. And remember that it was only two paragraphs ago that God gave Solomon great wisdom and knowledge so we should not doubt his judgement. The parking lots of America's churches ought be filled with Honda’s, Toyota’s and Volvo’s.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging.

I skipped this verse on my way through the first chapter because I did not feel prepared to comment on it then. I was surprised by it because it seemed too theologically deep for Christians who were described by Paul as infants in Christ. If anything, it reminds us that it is probable that there were members of the Corinthian church who were not spiritually immature. It is very easy to lump all of them into a group and then give them a blanket label rather than considering the likely diversity of the members’ spiritual states.

Here is the text from the NASB:

“But by His [God's] doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption”

There is significant depth in this verse due to the usage of such terms as righteousness, sanctification and redemption. The verse also sparks questions like what does it mean to be “in Christ Jesus” or what does it mean that Christ became wisdom for us. Now the first question may not seem like much to someone who grew up in a church and knows “church language”, but to many others it is probably difficult to define what is meant by being in Christ. The second question can only be understood within the context of the first few chapters of this letter alongside the culture of Corinth. I prefer to write about the three terms I mentioned earlier so I will leave these questions unanswered here.

“Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple.” (NIV)

The “you” here is plural and so refers to the church. But what does it mean to destroy the church? It must be more than building it with “wood, hay or straw” for the man who does that sees his efforts burned up, but he himself survives. In contrast, the man who destroys the church is in turn destroyed by God. That sounds painful. This verse leads to the corresponding question of what does it mean for God to destroy a man. The Bible Knowledge Commentary also points out that this sounds like an application of the Old Testament law of retribution (an eye for an eye).

As a side note, when I was comparing different translations of these verses, I decided that I preferred the NIV version for two reasons. One, it was the only one that I looked at that preserved the second person plural pronoun when talking about the church. English does not have a distinct second person plural pronoun unlike many other languages. The translators communicated this information by using “you yourselves” instead of just “you.” (I suppose it could have been “Don't you know that you all are God's temple.”) Two, the NIV uses “destroy” for both the man's and God's actions unlike the versions in the KJV family. Doing this does a better job at preserving the reference to retribution that a reader might remember from a passage like Genesis 9:6.

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” (ESV - entire text)

In Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman makes an interesting suggestion regarding the Second Commandment. Worshipping and serving God required abstract thinking by the Israelites. He does not exist in bodily form nor can he be properly comprehended through any physical analogies. People who record their experiences in and communicate through images, statues and the like will probably struggle with the idea of a universal, spiritual God. This is why God reveals himself through the Word, which is conducive to abstract thought.

Paul uses three metaphors in chapter 3 of First Corinthians: physical development to represent spiritual growth and the growth of the Church as farming a field or constructing a building. Here are some observations on the latter two metaphors — first separately and then jointly.

Church as Field
The Corinthians did not understand that God deserves the glory, not man. Making things grow is so much more difficult than just planting or watering.

Church as Building
Paul writes “Let each one take care how he builds upon it [foundation of Jesus Christ].” We will sometimes build with the wrong “stuff.” It is not always obvious to us what is the best way to build the Church.

General Observations
In both metaphors, there is a reward, but it is given in the future, not in the present. It is also given by God, not by man. Also, farming and construction both require multiple participants due to the amount of work and the different skills required (especially with construction). In both metaphors, Paul begins the work — planting the seed and laying the foundation — while others continue the work. One person doing all the work is not the ideal.

First, the text and then some comments.

The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment: "For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ. (NIV)

• When Paul says that the spiritual man makes judgments about all things it is in contrast to the worldly man who can only judge worldly matters with human wisdom. It does not mean that the spiritual man's judgement is perfect as we will see in chapter 4. The Corinthians (as worldly people) are trying to judge Paul in spiritual matters.
• To make the interpretation of the second part of verse 15 clear, the NKJV adds the word “rightly.” The spiritual man will be judged by men using human wisdom. It just will not often be the right judgement. Certainly Gideon was crazy to attack the Midianites with such a small army...from a worldly perspective.
• Paul finishes his explanation of why the Corinthians are not qualified to judge him (and other leaders) by noting how far God is beyond man and that God's wisdom has been revealed to Paul. I tend to think that Paul uses “we” in this verse to refer to himself and the other teachers — not to say that it cannot be applied to mature believers in general.

1 Corinthians 2:13 is one of those verses where each translation reads a little different. Here is how the verse is translated in the New American Standard Bible:

“which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.”

You may recognize this as a verse that often appears in discussions of verbal inspiration. The differences are not due to the underlying Greek texts used by the various Bible versions. There is only one variation between the Textus Receptus and the Nestle-Aland text: the word “Holy” does not appear in the latter text in connection with “Spirit.” The ambiguity is rather in our understanding of three Greek words within the context of this passage.

The first one (in the order of translation) is συγκρινοντες and only appears in two verses in the Bible. It has been translated as ‘comparing’ in the NKJV, ‘combining’ in the NASB, ‘interpreting’ in the ESV, ‘explaining’ in the HCSB, and ‘expressing’ in the NIV. The two other words that make up the clause do not provide much help due to their uncertain meaning. They are both forms of the Greek word πνευματικος. Bible translators are unsure of the gender of the second; it could be neuter or masculine. The first one is translated as ‘spiritual things’, ‘spiritual thoughts’, or ‘spiritual truths.’ The second becomes ‘spiritual’, ‘spiritual words’, ‘spiritual people’, or ‘spiritual men.’ This is a verse (more specifically, the last clause) where an expositor has to be careful putting too much emphasis on a particular word from his version of the Bible.

Now I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any other. - 1 Corinthians 1:16 (NASB)

This verse frequently comes up in discussions on infant baptism. I am more interested in how it relates to the inspiration of Scripture. God did not forget if Paul baptized others, and we believe Paul was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write this letter to the Corinthians. How do we explain this? All the commentaries that I sought out for this very reason did not deal with it nor did any of the notes in the study bibles that I possess. It did not come up in Sunday School either. I was surprised by this since it was the first question that I had after reading this verse.

First, let's consider the competing theories of inspiration (this is not exhaustive). At one end of the spectrum is where God dictates everything word for word and the prophet or apostle is nothing more than an amanuensis. J.C. Ryle is an example of someone from this camp. [Edit: I was wrong about Ryle. John R. Rice is a possible example though.] On the other end are the more liberal Protestant scholars who are antisupernaturalistic and consider the writers of the Bible to be similar to Shakespeare or Aristotle in that they had great insight. In between are a wide range of possibilities including God inspiring the writers with the ideas or concepts and the actual words belonging to the authors. Verbal plenary inspiration is probably the most common theory among conservative evangelicals. It holds that God inspired more than concepts or thoughts down to the individual words but that the human writer played a contributing role also. There is a mystery to the interaction between the two, similar to Jesus being fully God and fully man.

Any theory of divine inspiration that is based on word for word or even thought for thought inspiration will be challenged to some extent to explain this verse. This is where a partial inspiration theory excels, but that is a slippery slope for it places each verse under the judgement of individual believers. How do those who hold to verbal plenary handle this? They probably say this is an example of the human nature of the author showing through. Did Jesus ever forget where he laid down his staff for that is certainly part of the human experience.

It is important to be aware of one's assumptions when studying Scripture. The same is true when reading someone else's analysis of a passage. Being aware of the assumptions involves considering their certainty. In a comment on a previous entry, I presented a case where an assumption is applied with more confidence or rigidity than it might deserve. It precludes one or more interpretations that probably better fit the text than the one that results under a strict application of the assumption.

A positive example of applying a framework in the interpretation of a verse can be found in 1 Corinthians 2:10b - “The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God” (NIV). Reading this verse gives me the image of a man methodically exploring a library. The man learns new knowledge as he reads the books. We know that God is a triune God so this analogy is incorrect. The Spirit is God and therefore omniscient. The word searches could have been knows or understands, but those words do not have the sense of activity that search possess. No, searches is the right word, but we have to understand it differently from how we might search for car keys that were misplaced.

There are times when a New Testament author makes an application of an Old Testament verse that is not at all obvious. Certainly, most people would not feel comfortable if a modern commentator made similar applications. 1 Corinthians 2:9 is an interesting case of that because we cannot even be sure Paul is quoting a verse from the Old Testament. A vast majority of commentators say that it is a quote or paraphrase of Isaiah 64:4.

In the NIV, this verse from Isaiah reads as follows:
Since ancient times no one has heard,
no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.

In the context of this section, the verse is speaking to the uniqueness of God. Israel is remembering how God has cared for them. There is no other god that has done this for them or for anyone else.

In the same version, 1 Corinthians 2:9 is translated as
However, as it is written:
“No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him”

This is definitely not a quote of Isaiah 64:4 and not a paraphrase as many commentators claim. A paraphrase maintains the same meaning even though the words are different. The focus of Paul's quotation is on the salvation that God has prepared — on the gospel, which is God's secret wisdom that is being revealed. This is very different from talking about the uniqueness of God. I have read that almost the same quote can be found in some apocryphal writings. The dating of those writings makes it likely that they borrowed from Paul rather than vice verse. Another possibility is that they are both quoting from a third source. It would not be the only occasion that Paul quoted something outside Scripture.

Regardless, the application is the same for the Corinthians and for us. I still would not mind finding a source that deals with this more completely.

Note: I looked at other translations but the NASB, ESV, and HCSB were all too painful to read to use here.

The Text (ESV)

Just a few comments on these verses:
1. Paul switches from “I” to “we” in this section on spiritual wisdom. This shows that all the apostles and leaders of the church are teaching the same wisdom. It also does not give the Corinthians who champion Paul any reason to claim that he has any special wisdom that the other leaders do not possess.

2. Paul makes sure to reiterate that this wisdom for the spiritual mature is not the wisdom of the world. The world's wisdom is like the tower of Babel. It may make us proud of our achievements, but it does not get us any closer to God. God has to reveal his wisdom to us.

3. This wisdom is the gospel. I conclude this because Paul writes this is the wisdom that “God decreed before the ages for our glory.”

The Text (ESV)

Paul returns to the theme of Corinthians 1:17: he does not depend on human wisdom or eloquence when preaching the gospel. If a person could be saved through a persuasive argument rather than only through God's working, then that person's faith depends on the quality of the argument and he could be convinced otherwise. This is not to say that Paul did not use logic and reasoning when explaining the gospel. He clearly did as can be seen from Acts 18:4 or his time in Athens (Acts 17). The difference between Paul and the sophists was that his message depended on God's power. Now some use these verses to justify not preparing before preaching so that the Holy Spirit will be able to speak through them. I think that there is a significent difference between depending on fine sounding arguments and spending time in study and preparation. Paul is pointing out problems with the former. I think that he certainly did the latter.

I have thought much about what Paul means by “demonstration of the Spirit” in verse 4: “my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” Does he mean miracles, speaking in tongues, healings? I prefer John Calvin's interpretation: “With this he [Paul] contrasts the demonstration of the Spirit and of power, which most interpreters consider as restricted to miracles; but I take it in a more general sense, as meaning the hand of God powerfully exercised in every way through the instrumentality of the Apostle.”

God Chooses the Weak

The Text (ESV)

Paul continues to explain God's view of human wisdom to the Corinthians in these verses. He reminds them that not many of them were wise or powerful from the perspective of the world. Not only that, but God normally chooses to work through the weak or foolish. God chose David, the youngest of Jesse's sons, when the world would have selected his oldest son. God chose to give Israel victory over the Philistines and Goliath through David when he was still too young to go off to war. God chose to deliver Israel from the Midianites through Gideon, not known for his courage, leading only three hundred men against an army of tens of thousands or more.

God chooses the weak, first of all, because it is his good pleasure to do this. It is also so that we understand that it is God who performs these mighty deeds and not man. This is just as true now as it was during Old Testament times. We are not saved because of our wisdom or abilities. This question remains for the Corinthians to consider: if God does not use human wisdom in his plans, why are they arguing over their leaders' human wisdom and rhetoric abilities?

The Folly of Christ Crucified

The Text (ESV)

Another point that Paul makes against the Corinthian church's reliance on human wisdom is that the world sees the gospel (and specifically, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ) as foolishness. In thinking about this, I came up with a few different explanations. Perhaps Paul is assuming some sort of logical argument along these lines: the wise men of the world do not believe the gospel and anything that wise men do not believe is foolishness so the gospel is foolishness. Maybe he is saying that the people of the world are blinded to the true wisdom of the message of the cross (2 Cor 4:4). The argument that I like the best is that the crucifixion of the Son of God really is foolishness to the world — especially to the people of that time. The cross was a symbol of shame, not reverence. Consider what Justin, an early Church father, had to say about this, “For they proclaim our madness to consist in this, that we give to a crucified man a place second to the unchangeable and eternal God, the Creator of all.”

First, in the myths that the Greeks and Romans would be familiar with, the sons of gods do not suffer through shameful deaths. In those legends, the son of a god such as Hercules performs mighty feats and only dies in heroic fashion. They do not humble themselves and certainly do not submit to death on a cross.

Second, there is a paradox involving the cross. Crucifixion was a tool of the Roman Empire—of Caesar. It was a sign of his power and control. There was even a cult of Caesar that viewed him as a god on earth. Slaves and the politically weak were subject to this form of humiliating death. But Christ was able to defeat a much greater power than Caesar, that is sin, through the weakness of the cross. The very symbol of Caesar's power and Christ's weakness is really the power of God. What appears as foolishness to men is actually God's wisdom.

“Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age?” 1 Corinthians 1:20 (NIV)

Paul has already pointed out the Corinthians' problem with quarrels over leadership and expressed his relief over not giving them reasons to further those divisions. Now Paul points out a limitation of the world's wisdom with these rhetorical questions. If the wisest men by human standards did not chose Christ, why should the same wisdom be used in the selection of leadership in the Corinthian church?

“For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” (NIV)

I often think of this verse when I hear about the newest church growth method or witnessing technique that just came out. There is often a strong emphasis on the methodology of the business world. The pitch is centered on the success achieved at other churches. To help learn the particular approach, there are usually manuals, videos, and special edition Bibles available for purchase.

I do not think the problem necessarily lies with trying to develop a system for attracting people to the church. It is the pragmatic philosophy and emphasis on the method as the means of success that is dangerous. It is not the power of man and his abilities that change people; it is only the power of God (and yes, God can use purpose driven churches).

After the initial greeting and thanksgiving, Paul spends the remainder of the first four chapters of 1 Corinthians talking about the divisions in the church. The divisions have two primary causes. The first is that the Corinthians are spiritually immature. Those who are immature will always find reasons to quarrel. The second is that they lack an accurate understanding of the nature of man and his relative position to God. This causes them to divide into groups based on their loyalty to certain leaders.

Paul exposes their faulty view of man with the following points:

• Man's wisdom is nothing compared to God's wisdom. Why should you put so much faith in a man when his wisdom is foolishness from God's perspective? Plus, how can you select the best man to follow using your worldly wisdom?
• God does not choose to work through those whom human wisdom would say are our best representatives. This is a pattern seen over and over in the Old Testament. If God does not use human wisdom as a criteria for leadership, should we?
• God is wise, but his wisdom is revealed through spiritual means. The Corinthians were not mature enough to have this wisdom. Worse still, they thought that they were wise.
• Man cannot judge spiritual things very well. Only God can judge the heart. Therefore, the Corinthians should be careful judging the relative merits of their leaders' works.
• God works through man, but it is not man's doing. It is “only God who makes things grow.”

The Corinthians did not realize that God's power is not to be found in man's abilities and wisdom. Those who were quarrelling probably thought they were fighting God's fight by trying to raise their man to a position of preeminence in the church. They thought they were rich but proved to be spiritually poor. They thought they were wise but proved to be fools.

The Text

“One of you says, ‘I follow Paul’; another, ‘I follow Apollos’; another, ‘I follow Cephas’; still another, ‘I follow Christ.’ ”

The church at Corinth has divided itself into sects as history has shown that man is wont to do. I am sure that if we could look back in time at one of their gatherings, we would see all the followers of Paul sitting in one corner, the followers of Apollos in another and so on. Each group would be discussing the doctrinal errors of the other groups.

There is nothing wrong with following a church leader. In chapter 11, Paul exhorts the Corinthians to follow his example as he follows Christ. That last clause is important. Christ is the head of the Church. Christ is the husband as the Church is the bride. We should not be holding up men in the place of Christ.

I think it is also important to consider that Paul urges the church to be united in “mind and thought.” It is one thing for a church to talk like it is united; it is another to actually be united. Sometimes discussion of minority opinions on an issue is discouraged for the appearance of unity. This is not the kind of unity that Paul wanted for the church.

The Text

There are thirteen letters written by Paul in the canon of Scripture. The introduction of each letter has the same basic structure.

1. Identification of Author(s)
2. Identification of Recipient(s)
3. Greeting
4. Thanksgiving
5. Prayer

There are letters that leave out the thanksgiving or prayer. In the letter to the Galatians, Paul moves quickly from the greeting to expressing his astonishment at the Galatians following the Judaizers. In his first letter to Timothy, Paul gets down to the business of discussing false teachers immediately after the greeting. Eight of the letters do have the thanksgiving section, including 1 Corinthians.

In the thanksgiving, Paul normally expresses his thanks to God for some quality of the recipients about which he has heard. The dominant theme in these thanksgivings is the demonstrated faith and love of the recipients. Now this observation could itself be a topic for discussion, but that is not the focus of this short essay. It does serve as a contrast to the thanksgiving for the Corinthians. Paul thanks God for them “because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus (NIV).” It makes one wonder whether the church was so wracked with divisions, sexual immorality and immaturity that Paul could not think of anything that they have done to offer thanks to God for. Paul continues this focus on God's hand in their lives through the rest of the introduction. God did the enriching. God will keep them strong to the end. God has called them. God is faithful. It is good to know that even when we are at our worst, God is still faithful.

The Sunday School class that I attend and occasionally teach is beginning a study of First Corinthians. I thought it would be beneficial to me to record my thoughts on each section as we work through this book. If I use a commentary, I will be sure to cite sources. Otherwise, you can blame me for anything I write here.