Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - 1 Corinthians 1:17 - 1:17
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
17. ἀλλὰ εὐαγγελίζεσθαι. ‘Even the less learned can baptize perfectly, but perfectly to preach the Gospel is a far more difficult task, and requires qualifications which are far more rare.’—Augustine.
οὐκ ἐν σοφίᾳ λόγου. For σοφία see ch. 1Co 12:8, note. What the Apostle here means is not real wisdom, which is a spiritual gift, but the so-called wisdom which consists in an ingenious use of language. Of this kind of wisdom there was abundance in the Apostle’s days.
κενωθῇ. Be made vain or worthless. The word in the LXX. is used to represent the Hebrew idea of slenderness, wasteness, and hence worthlessness. It is rarely used precisely in the literal sense of emptying, and perhaps this classical sense of the word has been too much pressed, as in Php 2:7, where the A.V. keeps most closely to the Apostle’s point. It refers rather to the absence of moral worth, power, or reputation. Cf. ch. 1Co 9:15, 1Co 15:14; 1Co 15:58; Php 2:16; Jam 2:20. Also 2Co 9:3.