A Divided Church Meets an Undivided Christ

A Sosthenes appears in Acts 18:17 as the chief ruler of the Corinthian synagogue, beaten in front of Gallio’s judgment seat. If this is the same man, a former synagogue ruler now co-signs the letter, though the name was not rare. “Called” is kletos, and forms of the calling word run through the chapter.

“Church” is ekklesia, the ordinary Greek word for a city’s assembly of citizens, used of the town meeting at Ephesus in Acts 19:39. “Sanctified” is a perfect participle: already made holy. The closing “both theirs and ours” can mean their place and ours, or their Lord and ours; the Greek allows either.

An ordinary Greek letter began with chairein, “greeting” (as in Acts 15:23 and James 1:1). Paul changes it to charis, grace, and adds peace, the Hebrew shalom. The same words open Romans and most of his letters, so the formula is his signature.

Paul’s thanksgivings usually name faith, love and hope, as in 1 Thessalonians 1:3 and Colossians 1:4. This one names none of the three; it gives thanks only for gifts. Love will have to wait for chapter 13. “Given” points to a single moment, when grace reached them.

“Enriched” is plouteo, to be made rich. Corinth was a wealthy trading city, and Paul will turn the same verb into irony in 4:8: “now ye are full, now ye are rich.” “Utterance” is logos, speech; “knowledge” is gnosis, the word that will puff up in 8:1.

“Confirmed” is bebaioo, a legal word for guaranteeing a title or a sale, as in Romans 15:8. The testimony about Christ was made good among them, as a warranty is shown to hold. The evidence Paul points to is the church itself.

“Come behind” is hystereo, to lack or fall short, the verb of Romans 3:23, “come short of the glory of God”. “Gift” is charisma, a word chapter 12 will take up at length. “Coming” is apokalypsis, a revealing or unveiling: Christ is present now, only not yet seen.

“Confirm” repeats the guarantee verb of verse 6: God will make them good to the end as the gospel was made good among them. “Blameless” is anenkletos, unimpeachable, one against whom no charge can be brought, used later of church officers (1 Timothy 3:10). The prophets’ “day of the LORD” now carries Jesus’ name.

“God is faithful” is a sentence Paul will repeat in 10:13, “who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able.” “Fellowship” is koinonia, a sharing; 10:16 uses it for “the communion of the blood of Christ”. Christ has now been named nine times in nine verses.

“Divisions” is schismata, tears in cloth, the word of Matthew 9:16, where a patch makes “the rent” worse. “Perfectly joined together” is katartizo, to mend, the verb of James and John “mending their nets” in Matthew 4:21. The church is torn fabric, and Paul asks for it to be repaired.

Chloe, “green shoot”, was a name of the goddess Demeter, and she is known only from this verse. “They of Chloe” were probably her slaves or agents, travelling on business between Corinth and Ephesus. “Contentions” is erides, strife, the plural of the word in Romans 13:13.

Apollos was an eloquent Alexandrian Jew, “mighty in the scriptures”, who worked in Corinth after Paul left (Acts 18:24–19:1). Cephas is the Aramaic for rock, Peter’s name, which Paul generally prefers. The slogans have the form “I belong to”, as pupils attached themselves to a famous teacher.

“Divided” is memerizo, to parcel out, as if Christ could be dealt into shares among the parties. The first clause has no Greek particle expecting “no”, so it can be read as an exclamation, “Christ has been divided!”; the second and third questions do carry it and expect a flat denial.

Crispus was ruler of the synagogue in Corinth who “believed on the Lord with all his house” (Acts 18:8). Gaius is almost certainly the host of Romans 16:23, in whose house the whole church met. Paul baptized two founding families himself.

Baptism was “into the name” of someone, the formula of Matthew 28:19. To be baptized into Paul’s name would have put him where the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost belong. Several manuscripts read “that ye were baptized into my name”, putting the claim in the Corinthians’ mouths.

Stephanas’s household were “the firstfruits of Achaia” (16:15), and Stephanas himself was with Paul at Ephesus while this letter was written (16:17). The afterthought reads like a correction supplied by someone standing in the room.

“Sent” is apostello, the verb behind “apostle”. “Wisdom of words” is rhetorical polish, the craft Greek cities prized in their orators. “Made of none effect” is kenoo, to empty, the verb of Philippians 2:7, where Christ “made himself of no reputation”, emptied himself.

“Preaching” is logos again, so the Greek sets “wisdom of word” in verse 17 against “the word of the cross”. Both participles are present tense: those who are perishing and we who are being saved. The dividing line runs through the audience, not through the message.

Isaiah 29:14 in the Greek Old Testament says God will “hide” the understanding of the prudent; Paul writes “bring to nothing”, a stronger verb. The verse just before it in Isaiah, “this people draw near me with their mouth”, is the line Jesus quoted against the Pharisees in Mark 7:6.

Three types stand in a row: the wise man of Greek learning, the scribe of Jewish learning, and the “disputer”, syzetetes, a debater, a word found only here. The taunting “Where is” echoes Isaiah 19:12 and 33:18, where Isaiah asks after the vanished experts of Egypt and Assyria.

“Foolishness of preaching” is kerygma, the content of the message, not the act of delivering it. The folly lies in what is announced, a crucified Lord, not in the method of public speaking. “It pleased” is eudokeo, the good pleasure of God choosing freely.

The gospels record demands for a sign: “Master, we would see a sign from thee” (Matthew 12:38), and “What sign shewest thou then” (John 6:30). Greek education prized philosophia, literally the love of wisdom. The verse describes what each audience asked for before hearing.

“Stumblingblock” is skandalon, and Deuteronomy 21:23 explains the offence: “he that is hanged is accursed of God”, a verse Paul quotes of Christ in Galatians 3:13. “Foolishness” is moria, the root of “moron”. Crucifixion was a slave’s death, and to Greeks a crucified god was absurd.

Christ answers each demand of verse 22 on its own terms: the power of God for those who asked for a sign, the wisdom of God for those who sought wisdom. The same two groups named as offended in verse 23 are now named as called.

The Greek is neuter, “the foolish thing of God”, meaning the cross itself. The comparison is compressed: wiser than men and their wisdom, stronger than men and their strength. The sentence reads as a proverb, and Paul leaves it bare.

“Ye see” can be a command: look at your own calling. Corinth had been destroyed in 146 BC and was refounded by Julius Caesar in 44 BC as a Roman colony, settled largely with freedmen. It was a city of new money where status was always being competed for, and the three marks listed, learning, power and good birth, were the prizes.

“Hath chosen” comes three times in two verses, like a refrain. The neuter “foolish things” refers to people. Deuteronomy 7:7 said the same of Israel: “The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people.”

“Base” is agenes, without family or lineage, the exact opposite of the “noble”, eugenes, of verse 26. “Things which are not” recalls Romans 4:17, God who “calleth those things which be not as though they were”. “Bring to nought” is katargeo, to make idle, a verb this letter uses again and again.

“No flesh” is the Hebrew way of saying no human being at all. “Glory” is kauchaomai, to boast, and the letter returns to it constantly; 4:7 asks, “why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” The boast is ruled out “in his presence”, before God’s face.

“Of him” means from God: their existence in Christ has its source there. The Greek may make wisdom the heading and the other three its contents, a wisdom consisting of righteousness, sanctification and redemption. “Redemption” is apolytrosis, release by ransom, the buying back of a slave or a captive.

Jeremiah 9:23–24 names three who must not boast: the wise, the mighty and the rich. Paul’s list in verse 26 matched it closely, wise, mighty and noble, so the quotation closes a paragraph already shaped by Jeremiah. He quotes the line again in 2 Corinthians 10:17.