{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"1CO","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"1 Corinthians","commonName":"1 Corinthians","introduction":"The AUTHENTICITY of this Epistle is attested by CLEMENT OF ROME [First Epistle to the Corinthians, 47], POLYCARP [Epistle to the Philippians, 11], and IRENÆUS [Against Heresies, 4.27.3]. The city to which it was sent was famed for its wealth and commerce, which were chiefly due to its situation between the Ionian and Ægean Seas on the isthmus connecting the Peloponese with Greece. In Paul's time it was the capital of the province Achaia and the seat of the Roman proconsul (Act 18:12). The state of morals in it was notorious for debauchery, even in the profligate heathen world; so much so that \"to Corinthianize\" was a proverbial phrase for \"to play the wanton\"; hence arose dangers to the purity of the Christian Church at Corinth. That Church was founded by Paul on his first visit (Acts 18:1-17).\n\nHe had been the instrument of converting many Gentiles (Co1 12:2), and some Jews (Act 18:8), notwithstanding the vehement opposition of the countrymen of the latter (Act 18:5), during the year and a half in which he sojourned there. The converts were chiefly of the humbler classes (Co1 1:26, &c.). Crispus (Co1 1:14; Act 18:8), Erastus, and Gaius (Caius) were, however, men of rank (Rom 16:23). A variety of classes is also implied in Co1 11:22. The risk of contamination by contact with the surrounding corruptions, and the temptation to a craving for Greek philosophy and rhetoric (which Apollos' eloquent style rather tended to foster, Act 18:24, &c.) in contrast to Paul's simple preaching of Christ crucified (Co1 2:1, &c.), as well as the opposition of certain teachers to him, naturally caused him anxiety. Emissaries from the Judaizers of Palestine boasted of \"letters of commendation\" from Jerusalem, the metropolis of the faith. They did not, it is true, insist on circumcision in refined Corinth, where the attempt would have been hopeless, as they did among the simpler people of Galatia; but they attacked the apostolic authority of Paul (Co1 9:1-2; Co2 10:1, Co2 10:7-8), some of them declaring themselves followers of Cephas, the chief apostle, others boasting that they belonged to Christ Himself (Co1 1:12; Co2 10:7), while they haughtily repudiated all subordinate teaching. Those persons gave out themselves for apostles (Co2 11:5, Co2 11:13). The ground taken by them was that Paul was not one of the Twelve, and not an eye-witness of the Gospel facts, and durst not prove his apostleship by claiming sustenance from the Christian Church. Another section avowed themselves followers of Paul himself, but did so in a party spirit, exalting the minister rather than Christ. The followers of Apollos, again, unduly prized his Alexandrian learning and eloquence, to the disparagement of the apostle, who studiously avoided any deviation from Christian simplicity (Co1 2:1-5). In some of this last philosophizing party there may have arisen the Antinomian tendency which tried to defend theoretically their own practical immorality: hence their denial of the future resurrection, and their adoption of the Epicurean motto, prevalent in heathen Corinth, \"Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die\" (Co1 15:32). Hence, perhaps, arose their connivance at the incestuous intercourse kept up by one of the so-called Christian body with his stepmother during his father's life. The household of Chloe informed Paul of many other evils: such as contentions, divisions, and lawsuits brought against brethren in heathen law courts by professing Christians; the abuse of their spiritual gifts into occasions of display and fanaticism; the interruption of public worship by simultaneous and disorderly ministrations, and decorum violated by women speaking unveiled (contrary to Oriental usage), and so usurping the office of men, and even the holy communion desecrated by greediness and revelling on the part of the communicants. Other messengers, also, came from Corinth, consulting him on the subject of (1) the controversy about meats offered to idols; (2) the disputes about celibacy and marriage; (3) the due exercise of spiritual gifts in public worship; (4) the best mode of making the collection which he had requested for the saints at Jerusalem (Co1 16:1, &c.). Such were the circumstances which called forth the First Epistle to the Corinthians, the most varied in its topics of all the Epistles.\n\nIn Co1 5:9, \"I wrote unto you in an Epistle not to company with fornicators,\" it is implied that Paul had written a previous letter to the Corinthians (now lost). Probably in it he had also enjoined them to make a contribution for the poor saints at Jerusalem, whereupon they seem to have asked directions as to the mode of doing so, to which he now replies (Co1 16:2). It also probably announced his intention of visiting them on way to Macedonia, and again on his return from Macedonia (Co2 1:15-16), which purpose he changed hearing the unfavorable report from Chloe's household (Co1 16:5-7), for which he was charged with (Co2 1:17). In the first Epistle which we have, the subject of fornication is alluded to only in a way, as if he were rather replying to an excuse set up after rebuke in the matter, than introducing for the first time [ALFORD]. Preceding this former letter, he seems to have paid a second visit to Corinth. For in Co2 12:4; Co2 13:1, he speaks of his intention of paying them a third visit, implying he had already twice visited them. See on Co2 2:1; Co2 13:2; also see on Co2 1:15; Co2 1:16. It is hardly likely that during his three years' sojourn at Ephesus he would have failed to revisit his Corinthian converts, which he could so readily do by sea, there being constant maritime intercourse between the two cities. This second visit was probably a short one (compare Co1 16:7); and attended with pain and humiliation (Co2 2:1; Co2 12:21), occasioned by the scandalous conduct of so many of his own converts. His milder censures having then failed to produce reformation, he wrote briefly directing them \"not to company with fornicators.\" On their misapprehending this injunction, he explained it more fully in the Epistle, the first of the two extant (Co1 5:9, Co1 5:12). That the second visit is not mentioned in Acts is no objection to its having really taken place, as that book is fragmentary and omits other leading incidents in Paul's life; for example, his visit to Arabia, Syria, and Cilicia (Gal 1:17-21).\n\nThe PLACE OF WRITING is fixed to be Ephesus (Co1 16:8). The subscription in English Version, \"From Philippi,\" has no authority whatever, and probably arose from a mistaken translation of Co1 16:5, \"For I am passing through Macedonia.\" At the time of writing Paul implies (Co1 16:8) that he intended to leave Ephesus after Pentecost of that year. He really did leave it about Pentecost (A.D. 57). Compare Act 19:20. The allusion to Passover imagery in connection with our Christian Passover, Easter (Co1 5:7), makes it likely that the season was about Easter. Thus the date of the Epistle is fixed with tolerable accuracy, about Easter, certainly before Pentecost, in the third year of his residence at Ephesus, A.D. 57. For other arguments, see CONYBEARE and HOWSON'S Life and Epistles of St. Paul.\n\nThe Epistle is written in the name of Sosthenes \"[our] brother.\" BIRKS supposes he is the same as the Sosthenes, Act 18:17, who, he thinks, was converted subsequently to that occurrence. He bears no part in the Epistle itself, the apostle in the very next verses (Co1 1:4, &c.) using the first person: so Timothy is introduced, Co2 1:1. The bearers of the Epistle were probably Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus (see the subscription, Co1 16:24), whom he mentions (Co1 16:17-18) as with him then, but who he implies are about to return back to Corinth; and therefore he commends them to the regard of the Corinthians. \n\n\n\nNext: 1 Corinthians Chapter 1\n\n","order":46,"numberOfChapters":16,"sha256":"9bf5da45bfa8b3ebeb897bb227e19d039c2c950176364829d04b3dcc496cb600","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/1CO/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"1CO","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":16,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/1CO/16.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"1CO","chapter":16},"totalNumberOfVerses":416},"chapter":{"number":3,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["(Heb 5:12). \n\nmilk--the elementary \"principles of the doctrine of Christ.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["envying--jealousy, rivalry. As this refers to their feelings, \"strife\" refers to their words, and \"divisions\" to their actions [BENGEL]. There is a gradation, or ascending climax: envying had produced strife, and strife divisions (factious parties) [GROTIUS]. His language becomes severer now as He proceeds; in Co1 1:11 he had only said \"contentions,\" he now multiplies the words (compare the stronger term, Co1 4:6, than in Co1 3:21). \n\ncarnal--For \"strife\" is a \"work of the flesh\" (Gal 5:20). The \"flesh\" includes all feelings that aim not at the glory of God, and the good of our neighbor, but at gratifying self. \n\nwalk as men--as unregenerate men (compare Mat 16:23). \"After the flesh, not after the Spirit\" of God, as becomes you as regenerate by the Spirit (Rom 8:4; Gal 5:25-26).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["(Co1 1:12). \n\nare ye not carnal--The oldest manuscripts read, \"Are ye not men?\" that is, \"walking as men\" unregenerate (Co1 3:3).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["Who then--Seeing then that ye severally strive so for your favorite teachers, \"Who is (of what intrinsic power and dignity) Paul?\" If so great an apostle reasons so of himself, how much more does humility, rather than self-seeking, become ordinary ministers! \n\nPaul . . . Apollos--The oldest manuscripts read in the reverse order, \"Apollos,\" &c. Paul.\" He puts Apollos before himself in humility. \n\nbut ministers, &c.--The oldest manuscripts have no \"but.\" \"Who is Apollos . . . Paul? (mere) ministers (a lowly word appropriate here, servants), by whom (not \"in whom\"; by whose ministrations) ye believed.\" \n\nas . . . Lord gave to every man--that is, to the several hearers, for it was GOD that \"gave the increase\" (Co1 3:6).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["I . . . planted, Apollos watered-- (Act 18:1; Act 19:1). Apollos at his own desire (Act 18:27) was sent by the brethren to Corinth, and there followed up the work which Paul had begun. \n\nGod gave the increase--that is, the growth (Co1 3:10; Act 18:27). \"Believed through grace.\" Though ministers are nothing, and God all in all, yet God works by instruments, and promises the Holy Spirit in the faithful use of means. This is the dispensation of the Spirit, and ours is the ministry of the Spirit.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["neither is he that . . . anything . . . but God--namely, is all in all. \"God\" is emphatically last in the Greek, \"He that giveth the increase (namely), GOD.\" Here follows a parenthesis, Co1 3:8-21, where \"Let no man glory in men\" stands in antithetic contrast to \"God\" here.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["one--essentially in their aim they are one, engaged in one and the same ministry; therefore they ought not to be made by you the occasion of forming separate parties. \n\nand every man--rather \"but every man.\" Though in their service or ministry, they are essentially \"one,\" yet every minister is separately responsible in \"his own\" work, and \"shall receive his own (emphatically repeated) reward, according to his own labor.\" The reward is something over and above personal salvation (Co1 3:14-15; Jo2 1:8). He shall be rewarded according to, not his success or the amount of work done, but \"according to his own labor.\" It shall be said to him, \"Well done, thou good and (not successful, but) faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord\" (Mat 25:23).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["Translate, as the Greek collocation of words, and the emphasis on \"God\" thrice repeated, requires, \"For (in proof that \"each shall receive reward according to his own labor,\" namely, from God) it is of God that we are the fellow workers (laboring with, but under, and belonging to Him as His servants, Co2 5:20; Co2 6:1; compare Act 15:4; see on Th1 3:2) of God that ye are the field (or tillage), of God that ye are the building\" [ALFORD]. \"Building\" is a new image introduced here, as suited better than that of husbandry, to set forth the different kinds of teaching and their results, which he is now about to discuss. \"To edify\" or \"build up\" the Church of Christ is similarly used (Eph 2:21-22; Eph 4:29).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["grace . . . given unto me--Paul puts this first, to guard against seeming to want humility, in pronouncing himself \"a WISE master builder,\" in the clause following [CHRYSOSTOM]. The \"grace\" is that \"given\" to him in common with all Christians (Co1 3:5), only proportioned to the work which God had for him to do [ALFORD]. \n\nwise--that is, skilful. His skill is shown in his laying a foundation. The unskilful builder lays none (Luk 6:49). Christ is the foundation (Co1 3:11). \n\nanother--who ever comes after me. He does not name Apollos; for he speaks generally of all successors, whoever they be. His warning, \"Let every man (every teacher) take heed how,\" &c., refers to other successors rather than Apollos, who doubtless did not, as they, build wood, hay, &c., on the foundation (compare Co1 4:15). \"I have done my part, let them who follow me see (so the Greek for 'take heed') to theirs\" [BENGEL]. \n\nhow--with what material [ALFORD]. How far wisely, and in builder-like style (Pe1 4:11). \n\nbuildeth thereupon--Here the building or superstructure raised on Christ the \"foundation,\" laid by Paul (Co1 2:2) is not, as in Eph 2:20-21, the Christian Church made up of believers, the \"lively stones\" (Pe1 2:5), but the doctrinal and practical teaching which the teachers who succeeded Paul, superadded to his first teaching; not that they taught what was false, but their teaching was subtle and speculative reasoning, rather than solid and simple truth.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["(Isa 28:16; Act 4:12; Eph 2:20). \n\nFor--my warning (\"take heed,\" &c. Co1 3:10) is as to the superstructure (\"buildeth thereupon\"), not as to the foundation: \"For other foundation can no man lay, than that which has (already) been laid (by God) Jesus Christ,\" the person, not the mere abstract doctrine about Him, though the latter also is included; Jesus, GOD-SAVIOUR; Christ, MESSIAH or ANOINTED. \n\ncan--A man can not lay any other, since the only one recognized by God has been already laid.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["Now--rather, \"But.\" The image is that of a building on a solid foundation, and partly composed of durable and precious, partly of perishable, materials. The \"gold, silver, precious stones,\" which all can withstand fire (Rev 21:18-19), are teachings that will stand the fiery test of judgment; \"wood, hay, stubble,\" are those which cannot stand it; not positive heresy, for that would destroy the foundation, but teaching mixed up with human philosophy and Judaism, curious rather than useful. Besides the teachings, the superstructure represents also the persons cemented to the Church by them, the reality of whose conversion, through the teachers' instrumentality, will be tested at the last day. Where there is the least grain of real gold of faith, it shall never be lost (Pe1 1:7; compare Co1 4:12). On the other hand, the lightest straw feeds the fire [BENGEL] (Mat 5:19).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["Every man's work--each teacher's superstructure on the foundation. \n\nthe day--of the Lord (Co1 1:8; Heb 10:25; Th1 5:4). The article is emphatic, \"The day,\" that is, the great day of days, the long expected day. \n\ndeclare it--old English for \"make it clear\" (Co1 4:4). \n\nit shall be revealed by fire--it, that is, \"every man's work.\" Rather, \"He,\" the Lord, whose day it is (Th2 1:7-8). Translate literally, \"is being revealed (the present in the Greek implies the certainty and nearness of the event, Rev 22:10, Rev 22:20) in fire\" (Mal 3:3; Mal 4:1). The fire (probably figurative here, as the gold, hay, &c.) is not purgatory (as Rome teaches, that is, purificatory and punitive), but probatory, not restricted to those dying in \"venial sin\"; the supposed intermediate class between those entering heaven at once, and those dying in mortal sin who go to hell, but universal, testing the godly and ungodly alike (Co2 5:10; compare Mar 9:49). This fire is not till the last day, the supposed fire of purgatory begins at death. The fire of Paul is to try the works, the fire of purgatory the persons, of men. Paul's fire causes \"loss\" to the sufferers; Rome's purgatory, great gain, namely, heaven at last to those purged by it, if only it were true. Thus this passage, quoted by Rome for, is altogether against, purgatory. \"It was not this doctrine that gave rise to prayers for the dead; but the practice of praying for the dead [which crept in from the affectionate but mistaken solicitude of survivors] gave rise to the doctrine\" [WHATELY].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["abide--abide the testing fire (Mat 3:11-12). \n\nwhich he hath built thereupon--which he built on the foundation. \n\nreward--wages, as a builder, that is, teacher. His converts built on Christ the foundation, through his faithful teaching, shall be his \"crown of rejoicing\" (Co2 1:14; Phi 2:16; Th1 2:19).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["If . . . be burnt--if any teacher's work consist of such materials as the fire will destroy [ALFORD]. \n\nsuffer loss--that is, forfeit the special \"reward\"; not that he shall lose salvation (which is altogether a free gift, not a \"reward\" or wages), for he remains still on the foundation (Co1 3:12; Jo2 1:6). \n\nsaved; yet so as by fire--rather, \"so as through fire\" (Zac 3:2; Amo 4:11; Jde 1:23). \"Saved, yet not without fire\" (Rom 2:27) [BENGEL]. As a builder whose building, not the foundation, is consumed by fire, escapes, but with the loss of his work [ALFORD]; as the shipwrecked merchant, though he has lost his merchandise, is saved, though having to pass through the waves [BENGEL]; Mal 3:1-2; Mal 4:1, give the key to explain the imagery. The \"Lord suddenly coming to His temple\" in flaming \"fire,\" all the parts of the building which will not stand that fire will be consumed; the builders will escape with personal salvation, but with the loss of their work, through the midst of the conflagration [ALFORD]. Again, a distinction is recognized between minor and fundamental doctrines (if we regard the superstructure as representing the doctrines superadded to the elementary essentials); a man may err as to the former, and yet be saved, but not so as to the latter (compare Phi 3:15).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["Know ye not--It is no new thing I tell you, in calling you \"God's building\"; ye know and ought to remember, ye are the noblest kind of building, \"the temple of God.\" \n\nye--all Christians form together one vast temple. The expression is not, \"ye are temples,\" but \"ye are the temple\" collectively, and \"lively stones\" (Pe1 2:5) individually. \n\nGod . . . Spirit--God's indwelling, and that of the Holy Spirit, are one; therefore the Holy Spirit is God. No literal \"temple\" is recognized by the New Testament in the Christian Church. The only one is the spiritual temple, the whole body of believing worshippers in which the Holy Spirit dwells (Co1 6:19; Joh 4:23-24). The synagogue, not the temple, was the model of the Christian house of worship. The temple was the house of sacrifice, rather than of prayer. Prayers in the temple were silent and individual (Luk 1:10; Luk 18:10-13), not joint and public, nor with reading of Scripture, as in the synagogue. The temple, as the name means (from a Greek root \"to dwell\"), was the earthly dwelling-place of God, where alone He put His name. The synagogue (as the name means an assembly) was the place for assembling men. God now too has His earthly temple, not one of wood and stone, but the congregation of believers, the \"living stones\" on the \"spiritual house.\" Believers are all spiritual priests in it. Jesus Christ, our High Priest, has the only literal priesthood (Mal 1:11; Mat 18:20; Pe1 2:5) [VITRINGA].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["If any . . . defile . . . destroy--rather as the Greek verb is the same in both cases, \"destroy . . . destroy.\" God repays in kind by a righteous retaliation. The destroyer shall himself be destroyed. As temporal death was the penalty of marring the material temple (Lev 16:2; Dan 5:2-3, Dan 5:30), so eternal death is the penalty of marring the spiritual temple--the Church. The destroyers here (Co1 3:16-17), are distinct from the unwise or unskilful builders (Co1 3:12, Co1 3:15); the latter held fast the \"foundation\" (Co1 3:11), and, therefore, though they lose their work of superstructure and the special reward, yet they are themselves saved; the destroyers, on the contrary, assailed with false teaching the foundation, and so subvert the temple itself, and shall therefore be destroyed. (See on Co1 3:10), [ESTIUS and NEANDER]. I think Paul passes here from the teachers to all the members of the Church, who, by profession, are \"priests unto God\" (Exo 19:6; Pe1 2:9; Rev 1:6). As the Aaronic priests were doomed to die if they violated the old temple (Exo 28:43), so any Christian who violates the sanctity of the spiritual temple, shall perish eternally (Heb 12:14; Heb 10:26, Heb 10:31). \n\nholy--inviolable (Hab 2:20). \n\nwhich temple ye are--rather, \"the which (that is, holy) are ye\" [ALFORD], and, therefore, want of holiness on the part of any of you (or, as ESTIUS, \"to tamper with the foundation in teaching you\") is a violation of the temple, which cannot be let to pass with impunity. GROTIUS supports English Version.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["seemeth--that is, is, and is regarded by himself and others. \n\nwise in this world--wise in mere worldly wisdom (Co1 1:20). \n\nlet him become a fool--by receiving the Gospel in its unworldly simplicity, and so becoming a fool in the world's sight [ALFORD]. Let him no longer think himself wise, but seek the true wisdom from God, bringing his understanding into captivity to the obedience of faith [ESTIUS].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["with God--in the judgment of God. \n\nit is written--in Job 5:13. The formula of quoting SCRIPTURE used here, establishes the canonicity of Job. \n\nHe taketh . . . wise in . . . own craftiness--proving the \"foolishness\" of the world's wisdom, since it is made by God the very snare to catch those who think themselves so wise. Literally, \"He who taketh . . . the whole of the sentence not being quoted, but only the part which suited Paul's purpose.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["Quotation from Psa 94:11. There it is of men; here it is \"of the wise.\" Paul by inspiration states the class of men whose \"thoughts\" (or rather, \"reasonings,\" as suits the Greek and the sense of the context) the Spirit designated in the Psalm, \"vanity,\" namely, the \"proud\" (Psa 94:2) and worldly-wise, whom God in Psa 94:8 calls \"fools,\" though they \"boast themselves\" of their wisdom in pushing their interests (Psa 94:4).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["let no man glory in men--resuming the subject from Co1 3:4; compare Co1 1:12, Co1 1:31, where the true object of glorying is stated: \"He that glorieth, let him glory in THE LORD.\" Also Co1 4:6, \"That no one of you be puffed up for one against another.\" \n\nFor all things--not only all men. For you to glory thus in men, is lowering yourselves from your high position as heirs of all things. All men (including your teachers) belong to Christ, and therefore to you, by your union with Him; He makes them and all things work together for your good (Rom 8:28). Ye are not for the sake of them, but they for the sake of you (Co2 4:5, Co2 4:15). They belong to you, not you to them.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["Enumeration of some of the \"all things.\" The teachers, in whom they gloried, he puts first (Co1 1:12). He omits after \"Cephas\" or Christ (to whom exclusively some at Corinth, Co1 1:12, professed to belong); but, instead, substitutes \"ye are Christ's\" (Co1 3:23). \n\nworld . . . life . . . death . . . things present . . . things to come--Not only shall they not \"separate you from the love of God in Christ\" (Rom 8:38-39), but they \"all are yours,\" that is, are for you (Rom 8:28), and belong to you, as they belong to Christ your Head (Heb 1:2). \n\nthings present--\"things actually present\" [ALFORD].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["ye are Christ's--not Paul's, or Apollos,' or Cephas' (Co1 11:3; Mat 23:8-10). \"Neither be ye called masters; for one is your Master, even Christ\" (Rom 14:8). Not merely a particular section of you, but ye all are Christ's (Co1 1:12). \n\nChrist is God's-- (Co1 11:3). God is the ultimate end of all, even of Christ, His co-equal Son (Co1 15:28; Phi 2:6-11).\n\n\n\n\nNext: 1 Corinthians Chapter 4\n\n"]}],"introduction":"PAUL COULD NOT SPEAK TO THEM OF DEEP SPIRITUAL TRUTHS, AS THEY WERE CARNAL, CONTENDING FOR THEIR SEVERAL TEACHERS; THESE ARE NOTHING BUT WORKERS FOR GOD, TO WHOM THEY MUST GIVE ACCOUNT IN THE DAY OF FIERY JUDGMENT. THE HEARERS ARE GOD'S TEMPLE, WHICH THEY MUST NOT DEFILE BY CONTENTIONS FOR TEACHERS, WHO, AS WELL AS ALL THINGS, ARE THEIRS, BEING CHRIST'S. (1Co. 3:1-23)\n\nAnd I--that is, as the natural (animal) man cannot receive, so I also could not speak unto you the deep things of God, as I would to the spiritual; but I was compelled to speak to you as I would to MEN OF FLESH. The oldest manuscripts read this for \"carnal.\" The former (literally, \"fleshy\") implies men wholly of flesh, or natural. Carnal, or fleshly, implies not they were wholly natural or unregenerate (Co1 2:14), but that they had much of a carnal tendency; for example their divisions. Paul had to speak to them as he would to men wholly natural, inasmuch as they are still carnal (Co1 3:3) in many respects, notwithstanding their conversion (Co1 1:4-9). \n\nbabes--contrasted with the perfect (fully matured) in Christ (Col 1:28; compare Heb 5:13-14). This implies they were not men wholly of flesh, though carnal in tendencies. They had life in Christ, but it was weak. He blames them for being still in a degree (not altogether, compare Co1 1:5, Co1 1:7; therefore he says as) babes in Christ, when by this time they ought to have \"come unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ\" (Eph 4:13). In Rom 7:14, also the oldest manuscripts read, \"I am a man of flesh.\"\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/1CO/3.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"1CO","chapter":3},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/1CO/4.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"1CO","chapter":4},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/1CO/2.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"1CO","chapter":2},"numberOfVerses":22}