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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - 1 Corinthians 2:4 - 2:4
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Not in persuasive words of wisdom (ouk en pithois sophias logois). This looks like a false disclaimer or mock modesty, for surely the preacher desires to be persuasive. This adjective pithos (MSS. peithos) has not yet been found elsewhere. It seems to be formed directly from peithō, to persuade, as pheidos (phidos) is from pheidomai, to spare. The old Greek form pithanos is common enough and is used by Josephus (Ant. VIII. 9. 1) of “the plausible words of the lying prophet” in 1 Kings 13. The kindred word pithanologia occurs in Col 2:4 for the specious and plausible Gnostic philosophers. And gullible people are easy marks for these plausible pulpiteers. Corinth put a premium on the veneer of false rhetoric and thin thinking.
But in demonstration (all' en apodeixei). In contrast with the plausibility just mentioned. This word, though an old one from apodeiknumi, to show forth, occurs nowhere else in the New Testament.
Spirit (pneuma) here can be the Holy Spirit or inward spirit as opposed to superficial expression and power (dunamis) is moral power rather than intellectual acuteness (cf. 1Co 1:18).