Quote:
Originally Posted by UntoHim
Actually, according to the apostle Paul, "we have the mind of Christ" (1 Cor 2:15), and this is not something in the abstract, but is absolutely related to the knowledge of God's Word. And guess what?...This having "the mind of Christ" is also related to judgment - check out the word immediately preceding: "The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?".
|
It has been a while now, but I read through this general portion of 1 Corinthians a few times a while back and began to question some of the assumptions concerning what Paul is talking about here. For starters, who is the "we" that he is mostly referring to?
I begin to think that there is a pattern here that at least hints that the "we" is not actually all believers, but Paul and the others who teach. The chapter begins with Paul's comments on the message he initially brought to Corinth. Then suddenly, in verse 4, he changes from "me" and "my" to "we." And consistent with this section that goes from early in chapter 1 all the way into at least part of chapter 4, "we" has been a collection of teachers that the Corinthians have learned from. So what is different here that it would now be instead about the Corinthians? Immediately after this (and still in the same discussion of the in-fighting over which are the better teachers) "we" refers to Paul, Apollos, Cephas, etc., and "you" refers to the Corinthians. Besides the insertions of chapters and verses by others at a later date, where is there a distinction to cause the "we" in chapter 2 to be different?
Note that Paul is referring to "my message" and "we . . . speak a message of wisdom" and "we declare God's wisdom."
This chapter is part of the discussion of the teaching and teachers that have come to and been heard by the Corinthians. It is not about the things that the Corinthians preach to the world in some kind of message, but of the things taught to them. The whole discussion is about what comes to the Corinthian believers, not what they speak to others. So there is, at least as written, not really any reference here to what kind of spiritual insight
we have, but rather the spiritual insight
they, the teachers, have.
This runs smack against the things we were taught in the LRC. And that we like to think was clearly talking about us. But that is, at a minimum, a strained interpretation. The "truth" that I see emerging from much of the NT is that there really are teachers that have more insight than the rest of us do. That have been gifted to understand and teach.
There is clearly a level of discernment that we have because we are expected to see and reject false teachers. But maybe it is that "we" collectively are that discerning, but individually not so much. Except for the few places where Paul wrote to an individual leader, the letters are to groups of Christians. Not really for individual consumption and interpretation.
I honestly am beginning to think that the idea that much of this chapter, like the one following, is talking about the average Corinthian, and therefore the average Christian, is a lens we have learned from bad sources. My readings through this in recent years has suggested that while I might think I have enough discernment to recognize the meaning of the words enough to see an error in my previous assumption about what this passage means, I am not necessarily of sufficient discernment to claim to be among those that Paul is referring to here as having the mind of Christ.
I am not saying that we do not have the mind of Christ. But I think Paul is talking about a different level here. And the "we" he is talking about is not the Corinthians, but the teachers. He is just a few sentences from two new metaphors for this overall discussion in which "we" will be farmers, then builders, and "you" will be the farm and the building. "We" is Paul, Apollos, and Cephas. "You" is the Corinthians. (I have struggled with the use of "is" in that last sentence, but I think it is actually right. "Is" is shortened from "is referring to" since "we" is not "me and some others," but a word that is being discussed. Same for "you.")
Someone will suggest that I must think rather highly of myself to have stratified Christians in such a manner. But instead I find that I have put myself somewhere down in that stratification. Not so low that I have to just take whatever any one saying they are a teacher shovels at me. And I don't think there is such a low place.