1 Corinthians 12:3

Wherefore I make known unto you, that no man speaking in the Spirit of God saith, Jesus is anathema [devoted to destruction, hence accursed]; and no man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit. [The previous idolatrous life of the Corinthians left them not only ignorant as to the ways of God's Spirit, but also tended to mislead them. Paul therefore begins their instruction with the elementary principles which concern inspiration and revelation; thus: 1. An idol reveals no truth; it is dumb. 2. Idols are many, but God is one. 3. The pretended revelations and oracles of idols or idol priests and other impostors, may be tested by what their authors say of Jesus, for they will speak evil of him. 4. The true prophets and revealers may also be so tested. They will assert the claims of Jesus, which no man is moved to do save by the Holy Spirit (1 John 4:2-3; 1 John 2:22; 1 John 5:1). Treating these four points in their order, we need to note that: 1. Dumb idols were often made to speak by priests concealed in or behind them, who made use of speaking-tubes which led to the parted lips of the idol. Hence, converts from paganism needed to be reminded that idols were indeed dumb, as a safeguard against such fraud. No spiritual truth came from the oracles of idols. 2. As each realm of nature had its god, idolaters were drawn about from shrine to shrine and temple to temple, seeking one blessing from one god to-day, and another blessing from another god to-morrow. Hence, saturated as they were with polytheism, diverse gifts were with them instinctively associated with diverse gods. But the diverse gifts of Christianity were not to be attributed to different deities, or even to different subordinate spiritual beings, such as angels, etc., for they were all from one God, as Paul affirms in this chapter, reasserting it ten times in the next ten verses by way of emphasis. 3. Elymas affords a picture of one pretending to speak oracles--a false prophet. 4. The conflict between Paul and Elymas shows the blasphemy of the false and the confession of the true prophet (Acts 13:6-12). The oracle of Delphi was near by, and contentions between idolatry and Christianity were, we may be sure, matters of daily occurrence in Corinth, and the ideas of new converts would be easily confused. The third verse shows that the test of a teacher is not his apostolic succession, but the soundness of his doctrine--comp. Galatians 1:8]