{"id":2729,"date":"2007-05-21T13:31:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-21T13:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/?p=2729"},"modified":"2007-05-21T13:31:00","modified_gmt":"2007-05-21T13:31:00","slug":"is-christ-divided-session-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/?p=2729","title":{"rendered":"Is Christ Divided? session 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

I changed the format of these, due to complaints!! Click full post for text.
Notes for the house groups on 1 Corinthians.<\/p>\n

Week three, beginning Sunday 29 April: 1 Corinthians 2.6 – 2.16<\/p>\n

Main theme: spiritual wisdom;
not understood by the world, ‘secret’ and ‘hidden’;
requires being spiritual to be seen;
link with knowing Jesus (the ‘mind of Christ’).<\/p>\n

Questions to prompt discussion<\/p>\n

1.How do we know if someone is spiritual?
2.If you need to be spiritual to discern the truth – and therefore those who disagree must be unspiritual – how can we discern error in ourselves or in our community?
3.Can a Buddhist have ‘the mind of Christ’?
4.Where does Paul quote from in verse 9? What does this indicate about worthy texts? And isn’t it a wonderful text?!
5.What link is there between this passage (especially verses 11 and 15) and Jesus’ command that we are not to judge (ie condemn) one another?
6.(A difficult one) – what is the difference between Paul’s view and gnosticism (the view that it is by sharing secret knowledge – gnosis – that you are saved)?
7.Is Paul arguing that ‘only the holy can see truly’? (Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God) – how can we cultivate this holiness in our own lives?<\/p>\n

Some background thoughts<\/p>\n

In this passage Paul may be deliberately using vocabulary that the Corinthians would have used of themselves, ie a spiritual elite, in order to set them up for a painful fall in the beginning of chapter 3. He tends not to use much of this language elsewhere. Note in particular the shift to using ‘we’ language – a rhetorical device to lull the listeners and lower their guard!<\/p>\n

Paul employs a distinction between ‘this age’ – when there are worldly rulers – and ‘the age to come’ – when Christ is revealed as the true Lord of heaven and earth. Christians live ‘in between’ these two ages – as if we are living in the dawn light, we have started to see what is coming, the sun has not yet fully risen, and some deny that it ever will.<\/p>\n

Notes on verses<\/p>\n

v 6 ‘mature’ could also be translated ‘perfect’ – cf Mt 5 43-48
v 6 ‘rulers of this age’ – cf Rom 8.38, Eph 6.12, Col 2.15
v 9 may be a pastiche of Isaiah 64.4 and 65.17 – or a quotation from the now lost text ‘The Apocalypse of Elijah’ (according to the Church Father Origen)
v 9 ‘those who love him’ – Old Testament way of describing the faithful community
v 13 is best translated: ‘…taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to spiritual people’
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I changed the format of these, due to complaints!! Click full post for text.Notes for the house groups on 1 Corinthians. Week three, beginning Sunday 29 April: 1 Corinthians 2.6 – 2.16 Main theme: spiritual wisdom; not understood by the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3npsc-I1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2729\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}