1 Corinthians 1 Bible study: Christ crucified

The letter opens with two names: "Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes" (1:1) (tap called). It names Sosthenes nowhere else. It is sent "to the assembly of God which is at Corinth—those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, both theirs and ours" (1:2) (tap assembly), with "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." (1:3). Then, before it takes up what has been reported (1:11), the letter gives thanks: "I always thank my God concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus" (1:4), "that in everything you were enriched in him, in all speech and all knowledge" (1:5). In between, 1:6-8 speak of "the testimony of Christ" (1:6), of "waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1:7) and of "the day of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1:8), and these notes say no more of them than the verses do. The thanks ends, "God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." (1:9) (tap fellowship). In the WEB's 1 Corinthians, "God is faithful" stands in one other verse (10:13). Since the letter opens with two names, these notes say "the letter" for its "I", and say nothing of when or where it was written.

Judges 7:2→leads to1 Corinthians 1:29

The LORD cuts Gideon's army "lest Israel brag against me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me’" (7:2), and says, "I will save you by the three hundred men who lapped" (7:7). Paul writes, "God chose the weak things of the world that he might put to shame the things that are strong" (1 Corinthians 1:27), "that no flesh should boast before God" (1 Corinthians 1:29). "Because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who was made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption" (1 Corinthians 1:30), so that "He who boasts, let him boast in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 1:31). Paul doesn't cite Judges 7, so setting them side by side is a reading, resting on the point both passages state: God saves in a way that leaves no one boasting before him. Some see Gideon's three hundred as one time God did what Paul describes, and "Christ crucified" (1 Corinthians 1:23), whom Paul calls "the power of God" (1 Corinthians 1:24), as the fullest. Others read Paul within his own letter, about the Corinthians' calling (1 Corinthians 1:26), and Judges 7 within its own story, and don't look from one to the other.

μωρίαmoriasay mo-REE-ah

Strong's: "silliness, i.e. absurdity". Thayer: "foolishness". "For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are dying, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." (1:18). The New Testament has this noun five times, all of them in 1 Corinthians, and three of them in this chapter (counted in RP2018): here, "through the foolishness of the preaching" (1:21), and "Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks" (1:23). In "the foolishness of God is wiser than men" (1:25), the word behind foolishness is moros, which Strong's gives as the source of this noun ("from G3474"), and which Favor's Matthew 25 studies as foolish.