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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - 1 Corinthians 3:1 - 3:1
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
But as unto carnal (all' hōs sarkinois). Latin carneus. “As men o’flesh,” Braid Scots; “as worldlings,” Moffatt. This form in ̇inos like lithinos in 2Co 3:3 means the material of flesh, “not on tablets of stone, but on fleshen tablets on hearts.” So in Heb 7:16. But in Rom 7:14 Paul says, “I am fleshen (sarkinos) sold under sin,” as if sarkinos represented the extreme power of the sarx. Which does Paul mean here? He wanted to speak the wisdom of God among the adults (1Co 2:6), the spiritual (hoi pneumatikoi, 1Co 2:15), but he was unable to treat them as pneumatikoi in reality because of their seditions and immoralities. It is not wrong to be sarkinos, for we all live in the flesh (en sarki, Gal 2:20), but we are not to live according to the flesh (kata sarka, Rom 8:12). It is not culpable to a babe in Christ (nēpios, 1Co 13:11), unless unduly prolonged (1Co 14:20; Heb 5:13.). It is one of the tragedies of the minister’s life that he has to keep on speaking to the church members “as unto babes in Christ” (hōs nēpiois en Christōi), who actually glory in their long babyhood whereas they ought to be teachers of the gospel instead of belonging to the cradle roll. Paul’s goal was for all the babes to become adults (Col 1:28).