Ambrosiaster

In his own words on 1 Corinthians

• 1 Corinthians 1:1

  Paul begins this epistle differently, because his subject matter is different. He writes that he is an apostle by the will of God, alluding to those false apostles who had not been sent by Christ and whose teaching was not true. There were many sects which had emerged and which preached Christ according to their own whims. They broke up churches, and some of their dried-up branches are still with us today. For this reason, Paul sets out everything which is opposed to the heresies and asserts that he is a true preacher because he has been sent by Christ, according to God's will.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:2

  Paul writes to the church as a whole, because at that time leaders had not yet been appointed for individual churches. He censures them for many things, but in spite of that he still says that they have been sanctified. However, they later began to behave badly, so that although the whole church was sanctified in Christ, some members of it had been deflected from the truth by the wicked teaching of the false apostles.The Corinthians were called to be saints, which means that they could not deviate from the narrow path of sanctification. Paul linked them, as Gentiles, with the true Jews, because salvation is of the Jews, so that wherever there are Gentiles who call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and wherever there are true Jews, both are united in him. But the false apostles, who preached the name of Christ in accordance with the wisdom of this world, criticized the law and the prophets. Like Marcion and Mani, they maintained that Christ was not really crucified but that it merely appeared that he had been. Neither did they believe in the resurrection of the body.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:3

  Paul teaches that Christ should be invoked in prayer but all grace comes from the Father. The two are one in their divinity, but primacy belongs to the authority of the Father.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:4

  God has decreed that a person who believes in Christ can be saved without works. By faith alone he receives the forgiveness of his sins.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:5

  This means that the Corinthians have remained steadfast in the grace which they have received and in the preaching of the doctrine of truth, because they have acquired spiritual knowledge. Paul therefore gives thanks to God for these things.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:6

  The testimony of Christ has been confirmed in them because they have been strengthened by their faith. They had come to put no trust in human things. Rather, all their hope was in Christ, for they were ensnared neither by pleasure nor by the enticements of pleasure.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:7

  It is clear that Paul was a circumspect man who was full of concern as he awaited the day of judgment. On that day the Lord Jesus Christ will be revealed both to believers and to unbelievers. Then unbelievers will realize that what they did not want to believe is in fact true. Believers will rejoice, finding that what they believed in is more wonderful than they had imagined.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:8

  Paul is confident that the Corinthians will persevere in righteousness until the day of judgment. People who could not be shaken in spite of so many turmoils and disagreements proved that they would remain faithful to the end. In praising them, Paul is also challenging those who had been corrupted by the errors of the false apostles, for in proclaiming the faith of the former, he is calling the latter to repentance.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:9

  Fellowship is brotherhood. Just as Paul declares God's unfailing faithfulness toward us in this regard, so we ourselves must not be found to be faithless or dishonorable with respect to our adoption. Rather we must remain faithful in it.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:10

  Paul prays that the Corinthians will all think one thing, namely, that those who have been born again are children of God. He wants them to be perfectly united in the teaching which he had given to them. He challenges them to think this way and to defend his teaching.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:11

  Some people think that "Chloe's people" are those who remain faithful and bear fruit in the faith of Christ. Others think that Chloe is a place, as if one were to say "Antioch's people," for example. But others think that she was a woman devoted to God, in whose company there were many faithful worshipers.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:12

  Paul exposes their error without mentioning the names of the people responsible. The men whom he names here were all good teachers, but by alluding to them in this way he is really getting at the false apostles. For if the Corinthians were not to boast of their devotion to any of these men, how much more would this be true in the case of false teachers, whose corrupt doctrine he refers to next?

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:13

  By believing different things about Christ, the people have divided him. One person thought that Christ was a mere man, another that he was only God. One says that he was foretold by the prophets, while another denies it.Paul starts with himself, so that nobody will think that he is disparaging the status of others. If Christ died for us, how can we attribute his grace and blessing to men, thereby doing him a grave injustice?

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:14

  These Corinthians were like the Novatianists and the Donatists of today, who claim baptism for themselves and do not recognize anybody else's. Those who are so baptized glory in the names of Novatian and Donatus, having been deprived of the name of Christ. Crispus and Gaius are called as witnesses, because although they were baptized by Paul, they never suggested that he should be given any glory because of it.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:17

  Because it is a greater thing to preach the gospel than to baptize, Paul says that he was sent to do the former, not the latter. Not everyone who baptizes is competent to preach the gospel, for the words used at baptism are an established formula. When Cornelius became a believer, the apostle Peter gave orders that he should be baptized along with his household, but he did not bother to do it himself when he had his assistants standing by. It was because Christian preaching does not need elaborate refinement of verbal expression that fishers, who were uneducated, were chosen to preach the gospel. In that way the truth of the message would be its own recommendation, and it would not depend on the cleverness or ingenuity of human wisdom. The false apostles were doing just that, and moreover they were omitting the things which the world does not believe, like the virgin birth of Christ and his resurrection from the dead.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:19

  For it is written in Isaiah: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the intelligence of the intelligent I will reject (Isaiah 29:14). He destroys the wisdom of the wise, while he does what they deny is possible; and he rejects the intelligence of the intelligent, when he proves that God, whom they call careless, has undertaken those things which they consider foolish, namely that the Son of God would be crucified by being born of a Virgin for the salvation of humanity; which fact is truly attested by power, not words.

  Commentary on 1 Corinthians

• 1 Corinthians 1:20

  Here Paul attacks the Jews as much as the Gentiles, because their scribes and doctors of the law think that it is foolish to believe that God has a Son. Gentiles also laugh at this, but the Jews' unbelief is based on the fact that the matter is not openly stated in the law, whereas the Gentiles think it is silly because the reasoning of the world does not accept it, claiming that nothing can be made without sexual union. The debater of this age is a man who thinks that the world is governed by the conjunction of the stars and that births and deaths are brought about by the twelve signs of the zodiac. Is there anything more foolish than the belief that the Creator does not care about the world he has made? What would be the point of making it in that case? It is because they see some people enjoying life and others not, because they see the righteous suffering while the wicked boast, that they have come to believe that God does not care. But to say this is to say that God is malevolent and unjust.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:21

  The world has not recognized God but has attributed divine majesty to his creatures and to the elemental powers of the universe, thinking that visible things ought to be worshiped. God has therefore chosen a form of preaching which will seem foolish to such people. Those who reject what the apostles preach will be condemned, while believers are being saved.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:22

  The Jews seek signs because they do not reject the possibility that things like this can happen. What they want to know is whether it has actually occurred, like Aaron's rod, which sprouted and bore fruit, and Jonah who spent three days and nights in the belly of the whale before being spewed out alive. But the Greeks seek wisdom, refusing to believe anything which does not accord with human reason.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:23

  It is a stumbling block to the Jews when they hear Christ calling himself the Son of God yet not observing the sabbath. It is foolishness to the Gentiles because they hear things like the virgin birth and the resurrection being preached but regard them as irrational.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:24

  When Jews believe in Christ, they understand that he is the power of God. When Greeks believe in him, they understand that he is the wisdom of God. He is God's power because the Father does everything through him. He is God's wisdom because God is known through him. It would not be possible for God to be known through anyone who was not from him in the first place. No one has seen the Father except the Son and whomever the Son has chosen to reveal him to.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:25

  When Paul speaks of the "foolishness of God," he is not implying that God is foolish. Rather he is saying that since God's way of reasoning is in accord with things of the spirit, it confounds the reasoning of this world. It is wiser than human reasoning, because spiritual things are wiser than carnal ones. Spiritual things do not exist through carnal ones, but the other way around. Therefore carnal things are understandable in relation to spiritual ones. Similarly, what belongs to heaven is stronger than what belongs to earth. So what seems like the weakness of God is not really weak at all. Christ appeared to be defeated when he was killed, but he emerged as the victor and turned the reproof back on his persecutors.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:27

  The two most "foolish things of the world" are in particular the virgin birth of Christ and his resurrection from the dead. The wise are confounded because they see that what a few of them deny, the many profess to be true. There is no doubt that the opinions of the many faithful take precedence over those of a small number. Likewise, those who are mighty in this world can easily see the so-called weak things of Christ overturning demons and performing miracles. To the world the injuries and sufferings of the Savior are weak things, because the world does not understand that they have become the source of power through Christ who submitted to suffering in order to overcome death.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:28

  God chose ignoble and contemptible things to exalt. It is not that they are really ignoble and contemptible; this is how the world sees them. By believing in Christ they have overturned worldly reasoning. God did this in order to destroy things which are really ignoble and contemptible, because those who judged were more deserving of judgment and condemnation. Their teaching was asserted in words but not demonstrated in power, and so it was destroyed. Our teaching is proved true not only by words but by power as well.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:29

  Under the judgment of God the wisdom of the flesh can only blush at its miscalculations.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:30

  Christ did what he did in order to strengthen believers, for no one can redeem something which did not originally belong to him. Therefore, whether it is because we have been redeemed, or because we have been sanctified (i.e., purged from the works of the flesh and the filthiness of idols), or because we have been justified (for it is just to worship only the Creator and spurn everything else) or because we are wise, having learned that worldly people are unwise—all this is a gift of God through Christ. But this is our redemption—when the devil desires it, Christ offers himself to the devil so that he may cancel sin and rescue the devil's captives.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 1:31

  What Jeremiah [as quoted here] says is commendable, because the person who glories in the Lord will not be confounded.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 2:1

  What Paul calls the testimony here is God the Word incarnate, hidden from all ages with God. Heretics played fast and loose with these things. They preached their wicked doctrine with great eloquence, following the wisdom of the world. They emptied Christ's cross of its power. They were embarrassed to be ridiculed by the world.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 2:3

  By preaching Christ in what appeared to be folly to human wisdom, Paul provoked hatred and persecution against himself.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 2:6

  The mature are those who preach the cross as wisdom because of the witness of Christ's power at work. They know that actions speak louder than words. Their wisdom is not of this age but of the age to come, when the truth of God will be manifested to those who now deny it.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 2:7

  Paul testifies that he has been sent to reveal a secret wisdom which the princes of this world do not know and which they therefore label stupid. The wisdom of God is hidden because it is not in words but in power. It is impossible in human terms, but it can be believed by the power of the Spirit. God foresaw the future sins of the world and therefore decreed this in order to confound those who would turn his wisdom into their own stupidity, and also to glorify us, who would believe it.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 2:8

  The rulers of this age are not only those who were great among the Jews and the Romans but also every spiritual power which sets itself up against God. The Jewish rulers cannot be called rulers of this age, because they were subject to the Romans. Nor did the Romans crucify Jesus, because Pilate himself said that he found no fault in him. The rulers who crucified him were the demons. They knew that Jesus was the Messiah but not that he was the Son of God, and so it can be said that they crucified him in ignorance.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 2:9

  These words were expressed somewhat differently by Isaiah, and they are also found in the apocryphal Apocalypse of Elijah. Paul uses them to refer to the incarnation of Christ, which not only goes against human perception but is beyond the understanding of heavenly powers as well.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 2:10

  God revealed these things through his Spirit to believers, because the things of God cannot be understood without the Spirit of God, who is of God and therefore knows everything about him.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 2:11

  The Spirit of God has taught us what he knows by nature, not what he has been taught himself. Furthermore, he has taught us about the mystery of Christ, because he is not just the Spirit of God but the Spirit of Christ as well.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 2:12

  The "spirit of the world" is the one by which different people are possessed. It does not know the truth but can only guess at it, and therefore it both deceives others and is itself deceived by appearances.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 2:15

  Who can condemn a man who tells the truth? When such a person states that all the enemies of the faith regard falsehoods as true, their accusations are reduced to nothing because they are condemned by the judgment of the truth.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 2:16

  Paul says this because believers are partakers of the divine wisdom..

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 3:1

  Now he speaks to those who, because they still served the pleasures of the world, were carnal. Although they were already baptized and had received the Holy Spirit, yet because after baptism they immediately returned to the old man, whom they had renounced, they are called carnal. For the Holy Spirit remains in the one in whom he has poured himself, if he remains in the purpose of regeneration: if not, he departs; but in such a way that if a man reforms himself, he returns to him. Always ready for good, diligent in repentance.

  Commentary on 1 Corinthians

• 1 Corinthians 3:2

  Although they had been born again in Christ, they were not yet fit to receive spiritual things. Although they had received the faith which is the seed of the Spirit, they had produced no fruit worthy of God, but like babies, they were eager for the sensations of imperfection. But Paul, who was a man of God and a spiritual physician, gave to each of them according to his strength, so that no one should suffer scandal where spiritual matters were concerned because of imperfection or inexperience. Paul is also arguing strongly against those who were complaining that they had not heard anything spiritual for a long time, when in fact they were not worthy to hear it. The false apostles conveyed their message indiscriminately to anyone who would listen, but it is generally agreed that our Lord and Master spoke one way in public and another way to his disciples in private, and that even among the latter a distinction was made, for he displayed his glory on the mountain to only three disciples and told them to say nothing about what had happened until he should rise again from the dead.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 3:6

  To plant is to evangelize and to bring to faith, to water is to baptize with the approved form of words. To forgive sins, however, and to give the Spirit belongs to God alone. We know that the Holy Spirit is given by God without the laying on of hands, and it has happened that an unbaptized person has received the forgiveness of his sins. Was such a person invisibly baptized, considering that he received the gift which belongs to baptism?

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 3:7

  In relation to God's honor, human honor is nothing. As far as the ministry is concerned, a man may be honored in the way that a servant is honored.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 3:8

  Even though they are equal, the one who preaches the gospel is still greater than the one who baptizes and will receive a greater reward.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 3:10

  The wise master builder is one who preaches the same gospel as that which was preached by the Savior. Afterward other people build on the foundation, sometimes well and sometimes badly. We need to pay attention to make sure that what we build coheres with the foundation, because if it is crooked or lightweight it will collapse, though the foundation itself will remain intact. Even when people have taught badly, the name of Christ endures, because it is the foundation, although the bad teaching collapses.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 3:11

  Nobody can lay another foundation, because even if some people are heretics, they do not teach except in the name of Christ. They cannot commend the inventions of their error in any other way. So through the dignity of his name they try to make contradictory and absurd ideas acceptable.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 3:13

  In the fire, bad teaching will become clear to everyone, though for the moment it is deceiving some.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 3:14

  If anyone's work proves lasting, he will receive his wage. He will be just like the three brothers in the fiery furnace, destined to receive as his wage heavenly life with glory.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 3:15

  To suffer loss is to endure reproof. For what person, when subjected to punishment, does not lose something thereby? Yet the person himself may be saved. His living soul will not perish in the same way that his erroneous ideas will. Even so, however, he may suffer punishments of fire. He will be saved only by being purified through fire.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 3:16

  It is necessarily the case that God lives in his own temple. Note that because he says that the Spirit of God lives in us, the word God must be taken to refer to the Holy Spirit [in this verse].

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 3:17

  Paul says this in order to prick the consciences of those who have corrupted their bodies through evil living, especially the man who was having an affair with his father's wife..

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 3:18

  Here Paul is returning to what he said [in the first chapter].

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 3:20

  Knowing that their thoughts are vain, God rebukes their wisdom in order to prove that they are foolish, showing that what they thought was false is true and vice versa.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 3:21

  Human reasoning is unwise and weak, so one should not glory in man but in God, whose word cannot be altered. Whatever human beings think apart from God is foolishness.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 3:23

  We are Christ's because we were made by him, both physically and spiritually.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 4:1

  Paul says this because some of the Corinthians were denigrating him. He did not preach anything different from the apostles. By calling himself a servant of Christ and a steward of the mysteries of God, Paul implicitly points out who the false apostles are. He denies that what they preach is of Christ, because it is not in accord with apostolic tradition.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 4:3

  It is obvious that Paul was not worried about himself because he had a clear conscience.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 4:5

  God will judge in his own good time. A judge is insulted if a servant presumes to pronounce a verdict before the judge makes the decision known.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 4:7

  Paul wrote this to people who thought that it was better to be baptized by some people rather than by others, who had been led astray by their eloquence and who by some trick believed that perverse teachings were right. In fact, everything these people had they had received from the apostle.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 4:10

  Those who love Christ are fools as far as the world is concerned.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES

• 1 Corinthians 4:14

  Paul is acting here like a good physician who alleviates the pain caused by his operation to remove the disease, so that the sick person will let himself be cured.

  COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES