Notes on 1. Corinthians 2:1-5: The weak apostle

We will start out with a little repetition from a few weeks back, since I went a little bit ahead of myself speaking about how Paul did not win the Corinthians over with cleverness of speech. He repeats it here as a launching pad to another topic, and that's how we will treat it here too. Briefly, and not in as much detail as we did a few weeks ago.

Verse 1-2:

And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

I determined to know nothing

Paul is saying that his focus was sharp. He had determined to know only one thing when he was in Corinth. Christ and him Crucified. That was his message.

Does that mean that every Sunday in the Corinthian church Paul Ascended the pulpit and repeated the same sermon, reiterating Christ's sufferings on the Cross? Not by any means. You see, to someone who knows the true meaning of the Bible, every verse is about Christ and him Crucified. And whatever text you are teaching from, you're either preaching Christ and him Crucified or you're doing it wrong.

But Paul kept his focus on the cross. Not on elaborate arguments, philosophical speculations or other distractions. He had decided to discard that knowledge to give room for his vastly more important knowledge of Christ crucified.

Verse 3-5

I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

Weakness, fear, trembling

Some people picture Paul and the other apostles as some kind of half-angels walking around with a halo over their head, unaffected by anything happening around them. That's not the picture the Bible paints for us though. This is a real man, serving a real God in the midst of real suffering.

If we read in Acts, the chapters preceding Paul's arrival in Corinth, We see him and Silas beaten and imprisoned in Philippi in chapter 16. After their miraculous rescue they traveled to Thessalonica, where their opponents started an uproar against them. They escaped at night and went to Berea, and then Athens, where Paul's message was disregarded and scoffed at, and then finally after all of that, he arrived in Corinth.

We read in Acts 18 that shortly after his arrival, he and his followers were expelled from the synagogue, and in stead started meeting in the home of a brother who lived next to the synagogue. (v7) After this, the persecution apparently escalated to a point where God had to speak to Paul in a vision at night to keep him from leaving. (v9)

With that in mind, it should be no surprise to us that He was weak, fearful and trembling. Yes, Paul had learned to be content in whatever circumstances he was in (Phil 4:11-12), but that doesn't mean he was sailing through his trials with no effort. It rather meant that he had learned to appreciate how God used all of those trials to make him more like Christ.

There are two things I want to point out though, in regards to Paul's weakness, fear and trembling.

He still came

First, we can note that the verse starts with the words “I was with you”. In the midst of weakness, fear and trembling, Paul did not go home. He didn't give up his career in apostolic ministry to try to make it big in the tent-making business instead. And if he had, the Church in Corinth would have never existed, and we wouldn't have had this letter to learn from.

Paul continued serving God in spite of resistance, persecution and trials. Why? We know the answer from our first session in chapter one. He was called as an apostle by the will of God. He was a servant for better or for worse. He had not chosen to be an apostle, and he could not chose not to be one. It was who God had made him.

So even when he felt weak and fearful, giving up was not an option. He did not give in to it, he did not let it passify him, and he did not change any part of his message to please more people. He kept going in spite of his fears.

He had power

The other noteworthy detail is that in the very next verse after Paul said was with them in weakness it says his preaching was with demonstration of power. With little power on his own, Gods power became all the more evident. Paul was weak in himself, so that there would be room for God demonstrating his strength through the working of miracles.

The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles. (2Cor 12:12)

It pleased God, by any means to keep Paul humble and weak, so that God's power could be shown. We see this most clearly in 2. Cor 12:7-10

Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me--to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

When I am weak I am strong. God's power is perfected through weakness. This is how God has chosen to work in this world. This is how God gets the glory, in stead of his servants being made into idols. In fact Paul was not strong in spite of being weak. He was strong because he was weak.

What faith rests on

Going back to our text in 1. Corinthians 2, Paul offers one more reason why he came in weakness, fear and trembling, and without persuasive words of wisdom: “so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.” He goes on to explain that there's certainly no shortage of wisdom in the message he has preached, and that for the mature there are unimaginable depths to delve into. We'll talk more about that next time though. For now we will limit ourselves to considering what faith should rest on.

This text is clear about one thing. It should not rest on persuasive words. You may be familiar with the term apologetics, which means to use logic and reason to argue that the Bible is true. There is a time for apologetics, to build up and strengthen each other in the faith, or to deal with reasonable objections someone raises when you witness to them. But the Bible does not allow us to talk people into becoming Christians. Faith should not rest on intellectual consent to an argument.

Why not? Because we humans are a great deal dumber than we tend to give ourselves credit for. And our mind is easily influenced and deceived. Something as valuable as faith needs a more substantial foundation. One that doesn't move no matter what. It needs to be built on the power of God.

What is the power of God?

If we are going to build our faith on something, we need to know what it is. So it would be good for us to ask the question, what is the power of God.

The most natural reading of the text – which is confirmed in 2. Cor. 12, which we read a little while ago – seems to be that the power Paul came with to the Corinthians was the power to perform supernatural signs and wonders.

Now the next question to naturally follow would be if our preaching today should be accompanied with the same type of signs and wonders. Or if the power of God is expressed in other ways in our time.

We have three options to chose from.

1. Preaching today ought to be accompanied with the same amount of miracles, signs and wonders. If this is the case, I would say today's church is in a dreadful condition, since I'm not aware of any preacher anywhere in the world today whose preaching is accompanied with signs and wonders of the magnitude and regularity of the apostles. It seems conspicuous that most claims to this kind of power today comes from blatant false teachers and heretics. And even more so that the types of miracles are very different from those that are mentioned in the Bible. In stead of sick being healed and demons being cast out, many are finding “angel feathers” and growing gold teeth in their mouths.
   
2. In response to this many have instead said that God stopped all miracles after the Bible was completed. That the miracles performed in the Bible was to make it obvious who were true apostles and who were not. At this time the Bible was still being written as God was working through his chosen apostles in the early church. Many false prophets also claimed to be speaking on God's behalf. As we have read already in 1Cor 12:12, Paul points to miracles as evidence that he is an apostle, and that his teachings are authoritative. That he was certified by God to lay the foundational teachings that the Church would be built on (Eph 2:20). With that foundation now being complete, and the apostolic teachings gathered in the Bible, no one has authority to add anything to this foundation. Therefore miracles would not serve any purpose today.
3. The third alternative is the one I would hold to. And it is something in between the other two. There is much truth in alternative 2. No one has the authority to add to the Bible anymore, and miracles served to authenticate those who had that authority back in those days. Therefore we should expect less of them. If someone makes a claim about doctrine we should not ask them to prove it by showing us a miracle. We should ask them to prove it by pointing it out in the Bible.
   
   However, authentication of true apostles was not the only purpose that miracles served in the Bible. They were also acts of compassion from a kind and loving God to relieve suffering. Not to authenticate ministry. Jesus would be the best example of this as He is often quoted asking those He healed not to let anybody know about it. When Jesus met the widow in Nain, whose son was raised from the dead, it says “When the Lord saw her, He felt compassion for her”. (Luke 7:13). Likewise before He fed the 4000 He said “I feel compassion for the people because they have remained with Me now three days and have nothing to eat.” For this reason, as long as there is suffering in the world, there will be a place for miracles. And it is not wrong to pray for healing or for God to supernaturally meet any legitimate need we might have. However we should not expect miracles to be as regular and frequent as in the ministry of the apostles, simply because no one today serves in that capacity.