"Reading Greek all day" Pays Off

Well, it happened to me again. Because I had become so used to hearing a particular passage OUT of context, I completely misunderstood its meaning, which became evident when read IN the context. I've been going SLOWLY over 1 Corinthians, Chapters 1-2 and following Paul's flow of argument [which FORCES me to keep in context].

The Corinthian believers had become enamored with trying to apply Greek sophia (wisdom) to Paul's message. The result was they wanted to abandon Paul, and ultimately his teaching [the gospel: "Christ crucified"], which they apparently considered "milk". ["You started us off, Paul, but now we've gone on to higher things."] They thought they had matured into a "higher", Greek sophia-type of knowledge, with the result that they no longer needed Paul, nor his message. [Remember that they had previously been corresponding with Paul (1Cor.5:9), so Paul is responding to a previous letter they wrote to him, and he is likely using their own terms, but giving them more accurate definitions.]

Now here is where all that Greek reading comes in handy. Greek sophia is a "higher" spirituality that is divorced from ethical consequences (as the Corinthians certainly demonstrated!). Paul is telling them that the purpose of the HS's coming was NOT to transport the believer ABOVE the present age, but to empower him to live in a holy manner within it. Greek sophia was an intellectual or theoretical, rational knowledge as the Stoics would have understood it. [Btw, the Stoics believed death brought the merging of the soul with deity, with a resultant loss of personality. The Epicureans, as you know, denied there was any existence beyond physical death.] Paul tells the Corinthians that God's sophia has nothing to do with Greek sophia's insight into a god's secrets, disclosed in ecstasy or in a mystical way, as Philo had (erroneously) explained Abraham's and Moses' knowledge of God. True sophia of God is rather the profound content of God's revelation - Christ crucified [Paul's "kerygma" (message preached)]. The Corinthian church's error was to conceive of God as "ultimate Reason", meaning what THEY deemed "reasonable" (and they didn't find wisdom based on "Christ crucified" to be reasonable). But faith trusts God, recognizing His superior wisdom to that of the human mind.

In 1Cor.3:1, "infants" is the opposite of "spiritual", indicating that the "mature/teleioi" of 1Cor.2:6 are those who have received the Spirit (1Cor.2:12). Those "in Christ" (1Cor.1:30) are "the mature", and thus the Corinthians are included. BUT their behavior indicates that they are THINKING like "infants" [i.e. unsaved human Greek sophia]. Paul's concern is to persuade them to adopt the godly thinking, that results in godly behavior, which goes along with being "mature ones"/believers in Christ, instead of thinking like "infants"/the unsaved. (cf. 1Cor.14:20)

So, basically, Paul is NOT comparing immature believers with mature believers (as I had previously thought), but unsaved ["infants"] with saved ["mature ones"]. He points out that the Corinthians' perception of themselves as "mature" because they had added Greek human sophia [which was, in truth - the wisdom of the lost] to what they considered to be a "foolish" gospel message (1Cor.1:23) was, in fact, error. In reality, what they had done was to add the philosophy of a "kosmos/world" that had already been judged, and was "passing away". As believers they had God's wisdom [1Cor.2:16 "the mind of Christ", i.e. "understanding" of God's activity in the world, anchored/foundationed upon "Christ crucified"] and they had no need of an inferior Greek-type sophia/wisdom.