1 Corinthians Chapter 2

Now that stupid blog stupid thing has fixed, I can start.

vs 9

Even Isaiah, who that quote is from, and who goes on about the suffering servant, and has pretty strong visions of crucifixion and so on, even he didn't really know what was going to happen. God's plan was simply beyond our understanding. And he kept it hidden, too. I guess if we'd known, someone might have actually saved Jesus. Doubtful though. I mean, you'd think the disciples would have done it anyway.

vs 10

But now he has revealed what he has done. It is Paul's classic "It is a mystery, and now it is revealed" thing that he does in lots of his letters. Of course, now we have God's Spirit in us, and through that he can communicate stuff to us. The Spirit is like a more invasive heavenly Google web machine. Of course, we can't just plug in some search topics and come up with a heavenly answer, but anyone who has had their prayers answered knows that it's not that far off.

vs 11

I don't think Paul is making a point about the irreconcilable inability to truly communicate without using the Vulcan mind meld. But I do think he is saying that without expression (and possibly even with expression) the thoughts of a man are not easily fathomed, so that only inside himself does he know them. How much harder, then, for a man to divine God's thoughts? In the same way, only an insider, like the Holy Spirit, can be privvy to God's thoughts.

vs 12

And we have that Spirit, so we can understand God's thoughts. Not only his thoughts, but the actions that flow out of those thoughts, particularly those actions which he has done for us.

vs 13

And so, Paul and Sosthenes (remember him?) are not speaking this stuff just out of their arses, but they are speaking the words that God has given them. It's a spiritual message, and so it is being expressed in the Spirit's words. And the truths they speak weren't taught to them by a person, but by God through his Spirit.

vs 14

Oh, give me an amen to that! How many of us have tried to explain these things to non-Christians? Is it not a lost cause? Just one more reason to stick to Jesus, and explain that in the hope that God will open their eyes to it. Because trying to explain it in terms of human argument just isn't worth it. It is foolishness. I will freely admit that the gospel is foolish, in our human terms. But spiritually discerned, it is fabulous.

vs 15

It's verses like this that make what I am doing worthwhile. I mean, there are fair portions of the Bible which you just read, you go "yep, I think I've got that down". And then you hit 1 Cor 2:15 and you say "What the hell does that mean?"

Now, if you didn't know that the word used for "judge" here was anakrino, you might think it was talking about some form of heavenly or end-times judgement. In fact, the word "examine" or "discern" would work just as well.

Also, the words "not subject" are thrown in by the NIV to give it greater reference, but aren't actually literal. It's one of those times when I would have used a different word, because of course judgement has a more specific meaning in a Biblical sense, and I don't think anakrino is ever used in that sense. It can mean a sort of judgement, like making a judgement about something, but if he wanted it to mean "God's judgement", Paul would have used krima.

The NASB says "But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one." So instead of calling down judgement on all things, the spiritual man is now making value judgements about things, and yet no one can accurately assess him.

vs 16

And this is why. We have been given the mind of Christ, and he allows us to appraise our situation, or to appraise a certain thing that we are thinking of getting involved in, or a group of people etc. But people are unable to appraise us or finalise their judgement on us, because as Christians we just don't fit into the boxes they want. "He talks about people coming back from the dead, so he must be crazy. But he helps people, so he must be nice. He does things for the community, so he's a good person. But he speaks out against injustice, so he's a bit of a rebel. He talks about God and stuff a lot, so he must be spiritual, but he doesn't drink and he doesn't do a lot of things a normal person does, so perhaps he's from a cult..."