1 Corinthians 2:6-4:5 Comments by Stephen Ricker
Bible Study Home Page

A Wrong Concept of Christian Leaders
Comments for Study 2

Pick to read this Bible passage in a separate window.

Memory Verse: 24
Questions
Outline

SORRY, THE COMMENTARY THIS BOOK HAS NOT BEEN STARTED.
CLICK HERE FOR A LIST OF BOOKS THAT ARE COMPLETED.

I. Wisdom From the Spirit (2:6-16)

>1. Who is the Lord and glory and what wisdom did he display that is in regard to true believer's future glory? (6-8)

* 1 Corinthians 2:6-8 "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. No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory."

* Paul was highly educated for his day. Yet his human education leads him to false beliefs that were reinforced by an impure spirit and mind. Knowledge is one thing, wisdom another, and the truth is absolute. Paul did not know the truth. This leads him to cruel and evil acts.

God's wisdom and truth are not human wisdom and truth. Before I came into a personal relationship with God through Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit I was educated but did not know God's truths. This like Paul I sinned. Slowly God is revealing his truth to me through His Spirit. So that now I am known by God and am knowing God and his will for me.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. The Spirit reveals these to me so that I may understand what God has freely given me. (12) I am thankful he brought me out of foolish and dark thinking.

Mature Christian questions examine and apply what the Holy Spirit reveals, an unbeliever cannot judge and understand the believer's spiritual nature. (15) From the soil comes pure white flowers.

*

*

*

>To whom has God's secret wisdom been revealed? (9-10)

* 1 Corinthians 2:9-10 "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"-- but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God."

* "God has revealed it to us by his Spirit"

* "The Spirit searches all things"

* "even the deep things of God"

*

*

>How is it that we have come to know it? (11-12)

* 1 Corinthians 2:11-12 "For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us."

*

*

*

*

*

>2. How did Paul come to know God's secret wisdom? (13)

* 1 Corinthians 2:13 "This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words."

*

*

*

*

>Why even though an unbeliever is told the truth does he not understand and accept it? (14)

* 1 Corinthians 2:14 "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned."

*

*

*

*

>What can true believers learn about themselves in verses 15 and 16?

* 1 Corinthians 2:15-16 "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."

*

*

*

*

II. Who We Follow and What We Do (3:1-15)

>3. What stage of spiritual life were the Corinthian Christians at? (3:1)

* 1 Corinthians 3:1 "Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly--mere infants in Christ."

* In ancient times people did not go to an institution, school, college, nor university to get an education. Rather they went to a person and asked them if they could become a disciple. If a Jew wanted to learn about God the same was true. They went to a prominent rabbi to be trained as a disciple.

Jews went to the synagogue every Sabbath to worship and hear the Bible since most did not and could not have a copy at home. They did not go to synagogues to learn as many Christian do today. Occasionally a prominent visiting rabbi would speak. But that was the exception, not the norm.

God was doing something different in the early church. What he was doing in the church had never been done before in antiquity.

Jesus taught that we should call a person rabbi nor father. Instead in Christ, people were a community. Everyone had different functions and gifts. Different people preached and taught at different times, taking turns as the Holy Spirit prompted and equipped. No one was a disciple of someone else. That is what Paul is rebuking the Corinthians about in this chapter. They were calling themselves disciples of a human.

Some in the Corinthian congregation were still thinking and doing as others did. They followed people and became their disciples. Paul said, "No. Don't say I follow Paul nor I follow Apollos." This was not the way the Holy Spirit is working amongst them. The same is today.

I go to Bible studies, talk to other Christians,, read books, and study the Bible. The Holy Spirit slowly reveals to me as I pray and humbly submit to him. I have had to change my understanding of truths along the way. I am grateful for the ways of God. No human is my rabbi nor shepherd. I am not a sheep to men. I am a sheep of God. I thank God for all the people he leads into my life to show me the truth and the way. Yet, I know it's not them that changes me in character and thought. Its God, my one and only Father.

*

*

>What kind of Bible study did they still need? (2)

* 1 Corinthians 3:2 "I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready."

*

*

*

*

>What's a characteristic of an infant in Christ? (3-4)

* 1 Corinthians 3:3-4 "You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not mere men?"

*

*

*

*

>4. Why is paying to much honor and praise to others wrong? (5)

* 1 Corinthians 3:5 "What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe--as the Lord has assigned to each his task."

*

*

*

*

>Can any man make us grow spiritually? (6-7, 9)

* 1 Corinthians 3:6-7 "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow."

* 1 Corinthians 3:9 "For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building."

*

*

*

*

>Why then should a man be honored?

* "neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything"

*

*

*

*

>How then should God's servants expect to be rewarded? (8; Matt. 16:27)

* 1 Corinthians 3:8 "The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor."

* Matthew 16:27 "For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done."

*

*

*

>5. To what is our new life of faith compared to? (10)

* 1 Corinthians 3:10 "By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds."

*

*

*

*

>What is the foundation that all rest and relies on? (11)

* 1 Corinthians 3:11 "For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ."

*

*

*

*

>What is the Christian acts we do compared to? (12)

* 1 Corinthians 3:12 "If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw,"

*

*

*

*

>6. To what day will all Christians actions be examined? (13-15; Eph. 6:8; Col. 3:24-25; and 2 John 1:8; Rev. 11:18, 22:12)

* 1 Corinthians 3:13 "his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames."

* Ephesians 6:8 "because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free."

* Colossians 3:24-25 "since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there is no favoritism."

* 2 John 1:8 "Watch out that you do not lose what you have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully."

* Revelation 11:18 "The nations were angry; and your wrath has come. The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your saints and those who reverence your name, both small and great-- and for destroying those who destroy the earth."

* Revelation 22:12 "Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done."

III. Temples of God (3:16-4:5)

>7, After talking about buildings what does Paul equate each Christian to? (16)

* 1 Corinthians 3:16 "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?"<

*

*

*

>Considering all this talk about buildings, what does verse 17 mean?

* 1 Corinthians 3:17 "If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple."/i>

*

*

*

*

>8. What does verse 18-19 mean to you especially considering what Paul wrote about wisdom in 1:21?

* 1 Corinthians 3:18-20 "Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a "fool" so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. As it is written: "He catches the wise in their craftiness"; and again, "The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile."

* 1 Corinthians 1:21 "For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe."

*

*

>How does this explain why they were arguing about following Christian leaders? (21)

* 1 Corinthians 3:21 "So then, no more boasting about men! All things are yours,"

*

*

*

*

>How does this understanding make unity in Christ paramount? (22-23)

* 1 Corinthians 3:22-23 "whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future--all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God."

*

*

*

*

>9. What did it mean to be a servant in the Roman empire? (1)

* 1 Corinthians 4:1 "So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God."

*

*

*

*

>How does that equate to a proper view of self and others in Christ?

*

*

*

*

*

>Who is our master and what has he entrusted us with? (2; Matt. 25:14)

* 1 Corinthians 4:2 "Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful."

* Matthew 25:14 "Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them."

*

*

*

>10. Whose judgment should matter to us? (3-4)

* 1 Corinthians 4:3-4 "I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me."

*

*

*

*

>When he judges us, what will he look at? (5)

* 1 Corinthians 4:5 "Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God."

*

*

*

*

>How should this mold our decisions and actions?

*

*

*

*

*