PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Expositor's Bible: The First Epistle to the Corinthians
Dods, Marcus · 110,900 words · 154 reading sections
Third Series, 1889-90.
Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals. Variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained except in obvious cases of typographical error. The cover for the eBook version of this book was created by the t…
269 wordsSECTION 2Eighth Series, 1895-6.
Ecclesiastes. By the Rev. SAMUEL COX, D.D. St. James and St. Jude. By the Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D. Proverbs. By the Rev. R. F. HORTON, D.D. Leviticus. By the Rev. S. H. KELLOGG, D.D. The Gospel of St. John. By Prof. M. DODS, D.D. Vol. I. The Acts of the Apostles. By Prof. STOKES, D.D. Vol. I. The Psalms. By t…
322 wordsSECTION 3_Introduction._
London HODDER AND STOUGHTON 27, PATERNOSTER ROW _Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._ PAGE INTRODUCTION 3 CHAPTER II. THE CHURCH IN CORINTH 17 CHAPTER III. THE FACTIONS 33 CHAPTER IV. THE FOOLISHNESS OF PREACHING 49 CHAPTER V. DIVINE WISDOM 65 CHAPTER VI. GOD'S HUSBANDRY AND BU…
599 wordsSECTION 4_Introduction._
Corinth was the first Gentile city in which Paul spent any considerable time. It afforded him the opportunities he sought as a preacher of Christ. Lying as it did on the famous Isthmus which connected Northern and Southern Greece, and defended by an almost impregnable citadel, it became a place of great political impor…
836 wordsSECTION 5_Introduction._
It is in this Epistle we get the clearest view of the actual difficulties encountered by Christianity in a heathen community. We here see the religion of Christ confronted by the culture, and the vices, and the various social arrangements of paganism; we see the ferment and turmoil its introduction occasioned, the chan…
806 wordsSECTION 6_Introduction._
"The brooding East with awe beheld Her impious younger world; The Roman tempest swelled and swelled, And on her head was hurled: The East bowed low before the blast In patient, deep disdain; She let the legions thunder past, And plunged in thought again." Now in the Englishman there is much that closely resembl…
822 wordsSECTION 7_Introduction._
To the help of secularism comes also in our case another influence, which told with Gallio. Even the gentle and affable Gallio felt annoyed that so squalid a case should be among the first that came before him in Achaia. He had left Rome with the good wishes of the Imperial Court, had made a triumphal procession of sev…
685 wordsSECTION 8_The Church In Corinth._
And so it has ever been since. As matter of fact, it is not Christ's teaching, but His death, which has kindled the enthusiasm and the devotion of men. It is this which has conquered and won them, and delivered them from the bondage of self, and set them in a larger world. It is when we believe that this Person has lov…
415 wordsSECTION 9_The Church In Corinth._
In the year 58 A.D., when Paul wrote this Epistle, Corinth was a city with a mixed population, and conspicuous for the turbulence and immorality commonly found in seaports frequented by traders and seamen from all parts of the world. Paul had received letters from some of the Christians in Corinth which disclosed a sta…
768 wordsSECTION 10_The Church In Corinth._
The persons to whom this letter is addressed are identified as "the Church of God which is at Corinth." With them are joined in character, if not as recipients of this letter, "all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord." And therefore we should perhaps not be far wrong if we were to gather fro…
709 wordsSECTION 11_The Church In Corinth._
2. More particularly those who compose the Church are called to be "saints." Holiness is the unmistakable characteristic of the true Church. The glory of God, inseparable from His essence, is His holiness, His eternally willing and doing only what is the very best. To think of God as doing wrong is blasphemy. Were God …
927 wordsSECTION 12_The Church In Corinth._
Paul, with his usual courtesy and instinctive tact, introduces what he has to say with a hearty acknowledgment of the distinctive excellences of the Corinthian Church: "I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you in Christ Jesus, that in everything ye have been enriched in Him, in all …
789 wordsSECTION 13_The Church In Corinth._
But utterance is well backed by knowledge. Not always has it been remembered that Paul recognises knowledge as a gift of God. Often, on the contrary, has the determination to satisfy the intellect with Christian truth been reprehended as idle and even wicked. To the Corinthians the Christian revelation was new, and inq…
617 wordsSECTION 14_The Factions._
"Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of…
794 wordsSECTION 15_The Factions._
The third party gloried in the name of Cephas; that is, Peter, the Apostle of the circumcision. It is possible that Peter had been in Corinth, but it is not necessary to suppose so. His name was used in opposition to Paul's as representing the original group of Apostles who had companied with the Lord in His lifetime, …
853 wordsSECTION 16_The Factions._
Now that the Church is broken into pieces, perhaps the first step towards a restoration of true unity is to recognise that there may be real union without unity of external organization. In other words, it is quite possible that Churches which have individually a separate corporate existence--say the Presbyterian, Inde…
870 wordsSECTION 17_The Factions._
But the question remains, What truths are to be made terms of communion? Is schism or secession ever justifiable on the ground that error is taught in the Church? This is a question most difficult to answer. The Church of Christ is formed of those who are trusting to Him as the power of God unto salvation. He is in co…
808 wordsSECTION 18_The Factions._
The ever-recurring disposition then to reduce the work of Christ to the level of comparison with the work done for the race by other men must take account of this expression which reveals to us Paul's thought about it. Certainly Paul understands that between his work and the work of Christ an impassable gulf is fixed. …
613 wordsSECTION 19_The Foolishness Of Preaching._
"For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the w…
417 wordsSECTION 20_The Foolishness Of Preaching._
In the preceding section of this Epistle Paul introduced the subject which was prominent in his thoughts as he wrote: the divided state of the Corinthian Church. He adjured the rival parties by the name of Christ to hold together, to discard party names and combine in one confession. He reminded them that Christ is ind…
662 wordsSECTION 21_The Foolishness Of Preaching._
Paul then in this instance deliberately trusted to the bare statement of facts, and not to any theory about these facts. This is a most important distinction, and to be kept in view by all preachers, whether they feel called by their circumstances to adopt Paul's method or not. In preaching to audiences with whom the f…
681 wordsSECTION 22_The Foolishness Of Preaching._
II. Paul justifies his rejection of philosophy or "wisdom" and his adoption of the simpler but more difficult method of stating fact on three grounds. The first is that God's method had changed. For a time God had allowed the Greeks to seek Him by their own wisdom; now He presents Himself to them in the foolishness of …
852 wordsSECTION 23_The Foolishness Of Preaching._
2. As a second ground on which to rest the justification of his method of preaching Paul appeals to the constituent elements of which the Church of Corinth was actually composed. It is plain, he says, that it is not by human wisdom, nor by power, nor by anything generally esteemed among men that you hold your place in …
835 wordsSECTION 24_The Foolishness Of Preaching._
Lastly, Paul justifies his neglect of wisdom and rhetoric on the ground that had he used "enticing words of man's wisdom" the hearers might have been unduly influenced by the mere guise in which the Gospel was presented and too little influenced by the essence of it. He feared to adorn the simple tale or dress up the b…
832 wordsSECTION 25_Divine Wisdom._
"Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: which none of the princes of this world knew: for had…
372 wordsSECTION 26_Divine Wisdom._
In the preceding paragraph Paul has explained why he had proclaimed the bare facts regarding Christ and His crucifixion and trusted to the Cross itself to impress the Corinthians and lead them to God, and why he had resisted the temptation to appeal to the Corinthian taste for rhetoric and philosophy by exhibiting Chri…
734 wordsSECTION 27_Divine Wisdom._
This "wisdom" which Paul taught has had a larger and more influential place in men's minds than any other system of human thought. Christendom has seen Christ through Paul's eyes. He interpreted Christianity to the world, and made men aware of what had been and was in their midst. Men of the largest faculty, such as Au…
657 wordsSECTION 28_Divine Wisdom._
II. But if it be undiscoverable by man, how does Paul come to know it? To the Corinthian intelligence there seemed but these three ways of learning anything: seeing, hearing, or thinking; and if God's wisdom was attainable by none of these, how was it reached? Paul proceeds to show how he was enabled to "speak" this wi…
778 wordsSECTION 29_Divine Wisdom._
But it was not enough that God be revealed objectively in Christ; there must also be a subjective revelation within the soul of the beholder. It was not enough that God be manifested in the flesh and men be allowed to draw such inferences as they could from that manifestation; but, in addition to this, God gave His Spi…
790 wordsSECTION 30_Divine Wisdom._
This statement of Paul may be construed into a guarantee of the general accuracy of his teaching; but it was not intended to be that. Paul did not express himself in this way in order to convince men of his accuracy, still less to convince them that every word he uttered was infallibly correct; what he intended was to …
820 wordsSECTION 31_Divine Wisdom._
The confidence which Paul here expresses regarding his superiority to the judgment of carnal men is a superiority inseparable from knowledge in any department. Truth carries with it always a self-evidencing power, and whoever attains a clear perception of truth in any branch of knowledge is aware that it is the truth h…
654 wordsSECTION 32_God'S Husbandry And Building._
How soon do men think they have exhausted the one inexhaustible, the love and resources of God; how quickly do men weary of life, and think they have seen all and known all; how ready are men to conclude that for them existence is a failure and can yield no perfect joy, while as yet they know as little of the things Go…
528 wordsSECTION 33_God'S Husbandry And Building._
Paul, having abundantly justified his method of preaching to the Corinthians, and having shown why he contented himself with the simple presentation of the Cross, resumes his direct rebuke of their party spirit. He has told them that they were as yet unfit to hear the "wisdom" which he taught in some Churches, and the …
697 wordsSECTION 34_God'S Husbandry And Building._
3. If we are God's husbandry and building, let us reverence God's work in ourselves. It may seem a very ricketty and insecure structure that is rising within us, a very sickly and unpromising plant; and we are tempted to mock the beginnings of good in ourselves and be disappointed at the slow progress the new man makes…
731 wordsSECTION 35_God'S Husbandry And Building._
When Corinth rose from its ruins, it was no uncommon sight to see a miserable hovel reared against the marble wall of a temple or the splendid portico of some deserted palace rendered habitable by a patchwork of mud and straw. What a recent visitor saw at Luxor may be accepted as to some extent true of Corinth: "Mud ho…
801 wordsSECTION 36_God'S Husbandry And Building._
Paul, with his unfailing discernment, accepts it as a very possible contingency that a Christian man may do poor work. In that case, Paul says, the man will be saved as by fire; his work shall be burned, but himself be scatheless. He shall be in the position of a man whose house has been burnt; the man is saved, but hi…
740 wordsSECTION 37_God'S Husbandry And Building._
But, alas! with some it is no misunderstanding that prevents a close connection between the soul and Christ, but some worldly purpose or some entangling and deeply cherished sin. The foundation stone is as a polished slab of marble, having its upper surface smooth as a mirror, whereas we are like stones that have been …
808 wordsSECTION 38_God'S Husbandry And Building._
His own expression, "all things are yours," suggests to Paul the whole wealth of the Christian, for whom exist not only all those who have striven to unfold the significance of the Christian revelation, but all things else, whether "the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come." As it is true of a…
493 wordsSECTION 39_The Ministry._
"Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self. For I know nothing by myself…
402 wordsSECTION 40_The Ministry._
So keenly alive is Paul to the danger and folly of party-spirit in the Church, that he has still one more word of rebuke to utter. He has shown the Corinthians that to give their faith to one teacher, and shut their ears to every other form of truth than that which he delivers, is to impoverish and defraud themselves. …
757 wordsSECTION 41_The Ministry._
In his whole discussion of this subject Paul has named only himself and Apollos, but he means that what he has said of them should be applied to all. "These things I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes; that in us ye might learn not to think of men above that which is written, that no o…
766 wordsSECTION 42_The Ministry._
But besides this inward persuasion wrought in the mind of the individual, and which constitutes the inward call, there must be an outward call also by the Church's recognition of fitness and communication of authority. Any man who at his own instance and on his own authority gathers a congregation and dispenses the sac…
723 wordsSECTION 43_The Ministry._
Paul can only compare himself and the other Apostles to those gladiators who were condemned to die, and who came into the arena last, after the spectators had been sated with other exhibitions and bloodless performances. "I think that God hath set forth us the Apostles last, as it were appointed to death. For we are ma…
918 wordsSECTION 44_The Ministry._
It was Christ's own self-sacrifice that threw such a spell over the Apostles and gave them so new a feeling towards their fellow-men and so new an estimate of their deepest needs. After seeing how Christ lived, they could never again justify themselves in living for self. After seeing His regardlessness of bodily comfo…
718 wordsSECTION 45_Excommunication; Or, Purging Out The Old Leaven._
It is this then that our Lord does for us by claiming our service; He gives us the opportunity of sinking our selfishness, which is in the last analysis our sin, and of living for a worthier object than our own pleasure or our own careful preservation. When He tells us to live for Him and to seek the things that are Hi…
667 wordsSECTION 46_Excommunication; Or, Purging Out The Old Leaven._
From the subject of the factions in the Corinthian Church, which has so long detained Paul, he now passes to the second division of his Epistle, in which he speaks of the relation the Christians should hold to the heathen population around them. The transition is easy and such as befits a letter. Paul had thought it ad…
753 wordsSECTION 47_Excommunication; Or, Purging Out The Old Leaven._
But, second, the precise punishment intended by Paul is couched in language which the present generation cannot readily understand. The culprit is not only to be excluded from Christian communion, but "to be delivered unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved." Many meanings have been pu…
812 wordsSECTION 48_Excommunication; Or, Purging Out The Old Leaven._
Christ, then, is our Passover or Paschal Lamb, in the first place, because through Him there is made the acknowledgment that we belong to God. He is in very truth the prime and flower, the best representative of our race, the firstborn of every creature. He is the one who can make for all others this acknowledgment tha…
685 wordsSECTION 49_Excommunication; Or, Purging Out The Old Leaven._
The Paschal Lamb then was in the first place the acknowledgment by the Israelites that they belonged to God. The lamb was offered to God, not as being itself anything worthy of God's acceptance, but merely as a way of saying to God that the family who offered it gave themselves up as entirely to Him. But by thus becomi…
789 wordsSECTION 50_Excommunication; Or, Purging Out The Old Leaven._
Sacrifices were in old times accompanied by feasts in which the reconciled God and His worshippers ate together. In the feast of Passover the lamb which had been used as a sacrifice was consumed as food to strengthen the Israelites for their exodus. This idea Paul here adapts to his present purpose. "Christ our passove…
671 wordsSECTION 51_Excommunication; Or, Purging Out The Old Leaven._
The old leaven is to be put away: "the leaven of malice and wickedness," the bad-heartedness that is not seen to be bad till brought into the light of Christ's spirit; the spiteful, vindictive, and selfish feelings that are almost expected in society, these are to be put away; and in their stead "the unleavened bread o…
584 wordsSECTION 52_On Going To Law._
"Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints? Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that …
254 wordsSECTION 53_On Going To Law._
St. Paul here gives his judgment on the litigiousness of the Corinthians. The Greeks, in general, were fond of going to law. They were not only quarrelsome, but they seemed to derive an excitement pleasant to their frivolous nature in the suspense and uncertainty of cases before the courts. The converts to Christianity…
814 wordsSECTION 54_On Going To Law._
But equally worthy of remark is St. Paul's _inference_ from the fact that holiness shall eventually be supreme. His inference is that it ought _now_ to be regarded as competent to settle the petty disputes which arise among us. "If we are to judge angels, much more the things that pertain to this life." We can only arr…
873 wordsSECTION 55_On Going To Law._
II. The second confirmation of his rebuke St. Paul brings forward in the fifth verse: "Is there not a wise man among yourselves?" "A wise man" was the technical term for a judge in the Hebrew courts. To understand Paul's position we must bear in mind that among the Jews there was no distinction between Church and Stat…
792 wordsSECTION 56_On Going To Law._
But some one will say to this, as to every unworldly, truly Christian, and therefore novel and difficult counsel, "It savours of theory and of romance; a man cannot act it out unless he is prepared to be duped, and cheated, and imposed upon. It is a theory that if carried out must end in beggary." Just as if the world …
888 wordsSECTION 57_On Going To Law._
While therefore it is a mistake to suppose that all the laws which are to rule in the perfected kingdom of God can find immediate and unmodified expression in this present world, it is our part to find for them an introduction into the world in every case in which it is possible to apply them. Those laws which are to b…
650 wordsSECTION 58_On Going To Law._
Paul knows that the Christian conscience is with him when he declares that men should rather suffer wrong than bring reproach on the Christian name: "Know ye not that wrong-doers shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived; neither covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the king…
329 wordsSECTION 59_Fornication._
"All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. An…
850 wordsSECTION 60_Fornication._
Again, "all things are lawful for me;" all things are in my power. Yes, but for that very reason "I will not be brought under the power of any." "The reasonable use of my liberty cannot go the length of involving my own loss of it."[5] I am free from the law; I will not on that account become the slave of indulgence. A…
822 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.