1 Corinthians 2:4

And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: MY SPEECH - in private. PREACHING - in public (). Or, discourse on doctrines; preaching, literally, heralding, of facts. ENTICING - Greek, persuasive. MAN'S WISDOM - "man's" is omitted in B Delta G f g: retained in 'Aleph (') A C. DEMONSTRATION OF THE SPIRIT ... Persuasion is man's means of moving his fellow-man. Ministers should rather seek God's, which is demonstration, inspiring implicit faith by the power of the Spirit (then exhibited outwardly by miracles, and inwardly by working on the heart, now in the latter only, the more important way) (;...

4._And my preaching was not in the persuasive words. _By the _persuasive words of man’s wisdom _he means that exquisite oratory which aims and strives rather by artifice than by truth, and also an appearance of refinement, that allures the minds of men. It is not without good reason, too, that he ascribes persuasiveness ( τό πιθάνον) (109) to human wisdom. For the word of the Lord constrains us by its majesty, as if by a violent impulse, to yield obedience to it. Human wisdom, on the other hand, has her allurements, by which she insinuates herself (110) and her blandishments, as it were, by which she may conciliate for herself the affections of her hearers. With this he contrasts the _demonstration of the Spirit and of power_, which most interpreters consider as restricted to miracles; but I take it in a more general sense, as mean

1-5 Christ, in his person, and offices, and sufferings, is the sum and substance of the gospel, and ought to be the great subject of a gospel minister's preaching, but not so as to leave out other parts of God's revealed truth and will. Paul preached the whole counsel of God. Few know the fear and trembling of faithful ministers, from a deep sense of their own weakness They know how insufficient they are, and are fearful for themselves. When nothing but Christ crucified is plainly preached, the success must be entirely from Divine power accompanying the word, and thus men are brought to believe, to the salvation of their souls....

Verse 1 Corinthians 2:4. _AND MY SPEECH_] ο λογος μου, My _doctrine_; the _matter_ of my preaching. _AND MY PREACHING_] το κηρυγμα μου, My proclamation, my _manner_ of recommending the grand but simple truths of the Gospel. WAS _NOT WITH ENTICING WORDS OF MAN'S WISDOM_] ενπειθοις ανθρωπινης σοφιας λογοις, _With persuasive doctrines of human_ _wisdom_: in every case I left _man_ out, that _God_ might become the more evident. I used none of the means of which great orators avail themselves in order to become _popular_, and thereby to gain _fame_. _BUT IN DEMONSTRATION OF THE SPIRIT_] αποδειξει, In the _manifestation_; or, as two ancient MSS. have it, αποκαλυψει, in the _revelation_ of the Spirit. The doctrine that he preached w

AND MY SPEECH - The word “speech” here - if it is to be distinguished from “preaching” - refers, perhaps, to his more private reasonings; his preaching to his public discourses. NOT WITH ENTICING WORDS - Not with the persuasive reasonings (πειθοῖς λόγοις peithois logois) of the wisdom of men. Not with that kind of oratory that was adapted to captivate and charm; and which the Greeks so much esteemed. BUT IN DEMONSTRATION - In the showing ἀποδείξει apodeixei; or in the testimony or evidence which the Spirit produced. The meaning is, that the Spirit furnished the evidence of the divine origin of the religion which he preached, and that it did not depend for its proof on his own reasonings or eloquence. The proof, the demonstration which the Spirit fu

EXPOSITION 1 CORINTHIANS 2:1 _St. Paul's own method._ 1 CORINTHIANS 2:1 AND I; "I too;" I in accordance with God's method. WHEN I CAME TO YOU. The date of his first visit was in A.D. 52, and he had stayed a year and a half (Acts 18:11). He had since been (roughly speaking) "three years" (τριετίαν_, _Acts 20:31) at Ephesus. OF SPEECH OR OF WISDOM. I spoke to you neither oratorically nor philosophically. Hence the Apollos party, fond of the brilliant rhetoric of the young Alexandrian, spoke of Pau

AND MY SPEECH, AND MY PREACHING,.... As he determined, so he acted. As the subject matter of his ministry was not any of the liberal arts and sciences, or the philosophy and dry morality of the Gentiles, but salvation by a crucified Christ; so his style, his diction, his language used in preaching, WAS NOT WITH ENTICING WORDS OF MAN'S WISDOM; with technical words, words of art, contrived by human wisdom to captivate the affections; and with bare probable arguments only, a show of reason to persuade the mind to an assent, when nothing solid and substantial is advanced, only a run of words artfully put together, without any strength of argument in them; a method used by the false teachers, and which the apostle here strikes at, and tacitly condemns: BUT IN DEMONSTRATION OF THE SPIRIT, AND OF POWER; partly by making use of solid proofs out of the writings of the Old Testament, indited by...

1 CORINTHIANS 2:4 peiqoi/@j# sofi,aj @lo,goij# {C} Of the eleven different variant readings in this passage, those that read avnqrwpi,nhj before or after sofi,aj (ac A C P Y 81 614 1962 2495 _Byz_ ito syrh copbo _al_) are obviously secondary. If the word were original, there is no good reason why it would have been deleted; on the contrary, it has the appearance of an explanatory gloss inserted by copyists (at different places) in order to identify more exactly the nuance attaching to sofi,aj. It is much more difficult to decide what to do with peiqoi/j, an adjec...

CHAPTER 2 _ 1. The Apostle's Preaching. (1 Corinthians 2:1)._ 2. The Revelation of the Spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:6). 3. The Helplessness and Ignorance of the Natural Man. (1 Corinthians 2:14). The Apostle had been among them and declared unto them the testimony of God. This he had not done with excellency of speech or wisdom. He preached unto them the Person of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He, who is the wisdom of God, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3), was his one theme; he determined not to know anything among them but the Person

1 CORINTHIANS 1:18 TO 1 CORINTHIANS 2:5. THE CROSS, FOLLY TO THE WORLD, IS THE POWER AND WISDOM OF GOD. Paul now explains and justifies 1 Corinthians 1:17_ b_, which to Greek readers must have sounded strange, almost a defiant paradox. The story of the Cross is folly to those who are in the way of ruin, but it attests itself in our experience to us, who are in the way of salvation, as the power of God. And this is in harmony with Scripture. For God's wise purpose ordained that the world's wisdom should be unable to know Him. There is an effective contrast between Divine and human wisdom. The world seeks through its wisdom to know God, but God's wisdom checkmates the world's wisdom and thw