Jonathan Paul Mitchell
Paul’s exhortations to the Corinthians reveal many gems of the revelation concerning the Christ, and the realities of the new age into which God has ushered the world. These letters provide precious insights into the character of God, the work of Christ, Paul’s understanding concerning the Resurrection, and the appropriate conduct for God’s called-out community. God absolutely delights and considers it of great value to restore all of humanity to health, wholeness, and our original state of walking in love, united with God as “one Spirit”. The format and the methodology of these two commentaries follow those of our previous commentaries. They are based upon the author’s original expanded-translations of the Greek New Testament, and are primarily verse-by-verse comments, while occasionally grouping a few verses together to treat them as a unit of thought. Occasional quotes from other commentaries, or scholars, are cited within the bodies of the texts. A short introduction is given before each of Paul’s letters. A short excursus on a specific topic has from time to time been inserted. Throughout the works, quotes of OT (Hebrew Scriptures) passages, as well as of Second Temple Jewish literature, are on offer to provide both historical and contemporary contexts that may enlighten the thinking of Paul, along with the rhetoric of those days and Paul’s use of language and figures of speech. Although most of Paul’s writings are original to the revelations that he received, we are confident that just as he was aware of the works of Greek poets, he would have been aware of the thinking and manner of OT interpretation such as was used by his contemporary, Philo, of Alexandria. In like manner, we view his theological environment as being a part of the larger Christian movement of his day, and so we have included quotes from other NT passages which, even if those writings were subsequent to the writings of these two letters, would have likely been representative of the ongoing developments in the oral traditions following the years of the ministry, and then the death, of Jesus Christ. Therefore, a bulk of our comments are in the form of quotes from 1st century Christian documents, along with occasional quotes from the period of Second Temple Judaism. Added to the above are explanations of the imports of individual Greek words and their linguistic nuances, along with the author’s exegesis and alternate renderings from the translations of the texts. We trust that this work will shed light on these two letters that were written to a specific community and were sent to address specific issues within the 1st century city of Corinth.
