1 Corinthians 1:1-3

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ¹  called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus ²  by the will of God, and Sosthenes, our brother, 1:2 to the church of God that is in Corinth, ³  to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, and called to be saints, with all those in every place who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours. ⁴  1:3 Grace and peace to you ⁵  from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!

1 Corinthians 1:18-20

The Message of the Cross

1:18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 1:19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will thwart the cleverness of the intelligent.” ⁶  1:20 Where is the wise man? Where is the expert in the Mosaic law? ⁷  Where is the debater of this age? Has God not made the wisdom of the world foolish?

1 Corinthians 1:26-28

1:26 Think about the circumstances of your call, ⁸  brothers and sisters. ⁹  Not many were wise by human standards, ¹⁰  not many were powerful, not many were born to a privileged position. ¹¹  1:27 But God chose what the world thinks foolish to shame the wise, and God chose what the world thinks weak to shame the strong. 1:28 God chose ¹²  what is low and despised in the world, what is regarded as nothing, to set aside what is regarded as something,

1 Corinthians 2:3

2:3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and with much trembling.

1 Corinthians 2:14

2:14 The unbeliever ¹³  does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. And he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

1 Corinthians 3:18

3:18 Guard against self-deception, each of you. ¹⁴  If someone among you thinks he is wise in this age, let him become foolish so that he can become wise.

1 Corinthians 3:2

3:2 I fed you milk, ¹⁵  not solid food, for you were not yet ready. In fact, you are still not ready,

1 Corinthians 9:11

9:11 If we sowed spiritual blessings among you, is it too much to reap material things from you?

Hosea 9:7

9:7 The time of judgment ¹⁶  is about to arrive! ¹⁷ 

The time of retribution ¹⁸  is imminent! ¹⁹ 

Let Israel know! ²⁰ 

Israel Rejects Hosea’s Prophetic Exhortations

The prophet is considered a fool ²¹  –

the inspired man ²²  is viewed as a madman ²³  –

because of the multitude of your sins

and your intense ²⁴  animosity.

Acts 17:18

17:18 Also some of the Epicurean ²⁵  and Stoic ²⁶  philosophers were conversing ²⁷  with him, and some were asking, ²⁸  “What does this foolish babbler ²⁹  want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods.” ³⁰  (They said this because he was proclaiming the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) ³¹ 

Acts 17:32

17:32 Now when they heard about ³²  the resurrection from the dead, some began to scoff, ³³  but others said, “We will hear you again about this.”

Acts 26:24

26:24 As Paul ³⁴  was saying these things in his defense, Festus ³⁵  exclaimed loudly, “You have lost your mind, ³⁶  Paul! Your great learning is driving you insane!”

[1:1]  ¹ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “From” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.

[1:1]  ² tc Many important mss, as well as several others (א A Ψ 1739 1881 Ï sy), have a reversed order of these words and read “Jesus Christ” rather than “Christ Jesus” (Ì⁴⁶ B D F G 33 it). The meaning is not affected in either case, but the reading “Christ Jesus” is preferred both because it has somewhat better attestation and because it is slightly more difficult and thus more likely the original (a scribe who found it would be prone to change it to the more common expression). At the same time, Paul is fond of the order “Christ Jesus.” As well, the later Pauline letters almost uniformly use this order in the salutations. Thus, on both external and internal grounds, “Christ Jesus” is the preferred reading here.

[1:2]  ³ map For location see JP1 C2; JP2 C2; JP3 C2; JP4 C2.

[1:2]  ⁴ tn Grk “theirs and ours.”

[1:3]  ⁵ tn Grk “Grace to you and peace.”

[1:19]  ⁶ sn A quotation from Isa 29:14.

[1:20]  ⁷ tn Grk “the scribe.” The traditional rendering of γραμματεύς (grammateu") as “scribe” does not communicate much to the modern English reader, for whom the term might mean “professional copyist,” if it means anything at all. The people referred to here were recognized experts in the law of Moses and in traditional laws and regulations. Thus “expert in the Mosaic law” comes closer to the meaning for the modern reader.

[1:26]  ⁸ tn Grk “Think about your calling.” “Calling” in Paul’s writings usually refers to God’s work of drawing people to faith in Christ. The following verses show that “calling” here stands by metonymy for their circumstances when they became Christians, leading to the translation “the circumstances of your call.”

[1:26]  ⁹ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:10.

[1:26]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “according to the flesh.”

[1:26]  ¹¹ tn The Greek word ευγενής (eugenh") refers to the status of being born into nobility, wealth, or power with an emphasis on the privileges and benefits that come with that position.

[1:28]  ¹² tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[2:14]  ¹³ tn Grk “natural person.” Cf. BDAG 1100 s.v. ψυχικός a, “an unspiritual pers., one who merely functions bodily, without being touched by the Spirit of God.”

[3:18]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “let no one deceive himself.”

[3:2]  ¹⁵ sn Milk refers figuratively to basic or elementary Christian teaching. Paul’s point was that the Corinthian believers he was writing to here were not mature enough to receive more advanced teaching. This was not a problem at the time, when they were recent converts, but the problem now is that they are still not ready.

[9:7]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the days of the visitation”; NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV “the days of punishment.”

[9:7]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “has come” (בָּאוּ, ba’u). The two perfect tense (suffix-conjugation) verbs בָּאוּ (Qal perfect 3rd person common plural from בּוֹא, bo’, “to come”) repeated in this verse are both examples of the so-called “prophetic perfect”: the perfect, which connotes completed or factual action, is used in reference to future events to emphasize the certainty of the announced event taking place.

[9:7]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the days of the retribution”; NIV “of reckoning”; NRSV “of recompense.”

[9:7]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “has come”; NIV “are at hand”; NLT “is almost here.”

[9:7]  ²⁰ tc The Aleppo Codex and Leningrad Codex (the MT ms employed for BHS) both place the atnach (colon-divider) after יֵדְעוּ יִשְׂרָאֵל (yedÿ’u yisra’el, “Let Israel know!”), indicating that this line belongs with 9:7a (cf. NAB, NASB, NIV). However, the LXX reads κακωθήσεται (kakwqhsetai) which reflects an underlying Vorlage of יָרֵעוּ (yare’u, Qal imperfect 3rd person common plural from יָרַע, yara’, “to cry”), as opposed to the MT יֵדְעוּ (yedÿ’u, Qal jussive 3rd common plural from יָדַע, yada’, “to know”). The Old Greek connects יֵדְעוּ יִשְׂרָאֵל (“Israel cries out”) with the following lines (cf. NRSV), which appear to be quotations of Israel mocking Hosea. Aquila (ἔγνω, egnw) and Symmachus (γνώσεται, gnwsetai) both reflect the proto-MT tradition. For a discussion of this textual and syntactical problem, see H. W. Wolff, Hosea (Hermeneia), 150.

[9:7]  ²¹ tn Or “is distraught”; cf. CEV, NLT “are crazy.”

[9:7]  ²² tn Heb “the man of the Spirit”; NAB, NRSV “spirit.”

[9:7]  ²³ tn Or “is driven to despair.” The term מְשֻׁגָּע (mÿshugga’, Pual participle masculine singular from שָׁגַע, shaga’, “to be mad”) may be understood in two senses: (1) It could be a predicate adjective which is a figure of speech: “to be maddened,” to be driven to despair (Deut 28:34); or (2) it could be a substantive: “a madman,” referring to prophets who attempted to enter into a prophetic state through whipping themselves into a frenzy (1 Sam 21:16; 2 Kgs 9:11; Jer 29:26; see BDB 993 s.v. שָׁגַע). The prophetic context of 9:7 favors the latter option (which is followed by most English versions). Apparently, the general populace viewed these mantics with suspicion and questioned the legitimacy of their claim to be true prophets (e.g., 2 Kgs 9:11; Jer 29:26).

[9:7]  ²⁴ tn Heb “great.”

[17:18]  ²⁵ sn An Epicurean was a follower of the philosophy of Epicurus, who founded a school in Athens about 300 b.c. Although the Epicureans saw the aim of life as pleasure, they were not strictly hedonists, because they defined pleasure as the absence of pain. Along with this, they desired the avoidance of trouble and freedom from annoyances. They saw organized religion as evil, especially the belief that the gods punished evildoers in an afterlife. In keeping with this, they were unable to accept Paul’s teaching about the resurrection.

[17:18]  ²⁶ sn A Stoic was a follower of the philosophy founded by Zeno (342-270 b.c.), a Phoenician who came to Athens and modified the philosophical system of the Cynics he found there. The Stoics rejected the Epicurean ideal of pleasure, stressing virtue instead. The Stoics emphasized responsibility for voluntary actions and believed risks were worth taking, but thought the actual attainment of virtue was difficult. They also believed in providence.

[17:18]  ²⁷ tn BDAG 956 s.v. συμβάλλω 1 has “converse, confer” here.

[17:18]  ²⁸ tn Grk “saying.”

[17:18]  ²⁹ tn Or “ignorant show-off.” The traditional English translation of σπερμολόγος (spermologo") is given in L&N 33.381 as “foolish babbler.” However, an alternate view is presented in L&N 27.19, “(a figurative extension of meaning of a term based on the practice of birds in picking up seeds) one who acquires bits and pieces of relatively extraneous information and proceeds to pass them off with pretense and show – ‘ignorant show-off, charlatan.’” A similar view is given in BDAG 937 s.v. σπερμολόγος: “in pejorative imagery of persons whose communication lacks sophistication and seems to pick up scraps of information here and there scrapmonger, scavenger…Engl. synonyms include ‘gossip’, ‘babbler’, chatterer’; but these terms miss the imagery of unsystematic gathering.”

[17:18]  ³⁰ tn The meaning of this phrase is not clear. Literally it reads “strange deities” (see BDAG 210 s.v. δαιμόνιον 1). The note of not being customary is important. In the ancient world what was new was suspicious. The plural δαιμονίων (daimoniwn, “deities”) shows the audience grappling with Paul’s teaching that God was working through Jesus.

[17:18]  ³¹ sn This is a parenthetical note by the author.

[17:32]  ³² tn The participle ἀκούσαντες (akousante") has been taken temporally.

[17:32]  ³³ tn L&N 33.408 has “some scoffed (at him) Ac 17:32” for ἐχλεύαζον (ecleuazon) here; the imperfect verb has been translated as an ingressive imperfect (“began to scoff”).

[26:24]  ³⁴ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Paul) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[26:24]  ³⁵ sn See the note on Porcius Festus in 24:27.

[26:24]  ³⁶ tn On the term translated “lost your mind” see BDAG 610 s.v. μαίνομαι, which has “you’re out of your mind, you’re raving, said to one whose enthusiasm seems to have outrun better judgment 26:24.”