recounts Paul's departure from Athens and his arrival in Corinth. The writer of the Acts of the Apostles states that Paul "testified to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ, but when opposed him and blasphemed, shook his garments and said to them, 'Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles'." Lutheran theologianHarold Buls describes Corinth as "was much like the city of Athens. They admired philosophers and orators. They were always sitting around waiting to hear or tell the latest philosophy. Many of them were sophists, teachers of speech and philosophy who came to be disparaged for their oversubtle, self-serving reasoning. Many of them were skilled in devious argumentation." In Paul recalls that he "did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom". He states that he spoke "in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling" and "my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom". Acts reports that
Verse 2
Buls notes that "'For' is the explanatory 'you see' and explains verse 1".
The rulers of this age
Paul refers twice to "the rulers of this age". Dutch theologian Hugo Grotius suggests that the rulers of this age are the "politicians, who adhere to justice and understand history" but Heinrich Meyer in his Commentary on the New Testament is critical of this opinion: "to say that Paul’s meaning is that he does not teach politics is to limit his words in a way foreign to the connection", preferring a broader meaning of rulers and dominant powers "in general". Some writers have associated the words with the Jewish leaders referred to by Paul in his speech in the synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia: but again Meyer also suggests this understanding limits the scope of Paul's intention.
Verse 16
"Who has known the mind of the Lord...?": either a citation or allusion to. The "scheme of salvation by Jesus Christ" is drawn in His eternal mind with the sense of the Spirit of God in the writings of the Old Testament, so that no natural man could have known any of these things.
"The mind of Christ": the same with "the mind of the Lord" proves that Christ is the Lord. The apostles and ministers of the Gospel, even all true believers, cannot get it from any natural man, but from Christ alone.
