Today’s Readings

• Reading I: 1 Corinthians 2:10b-16
• Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 145
• Gospel Reading: Luke 4:31-37

Paul has been accused of being “weak” in discourse and for this reason has himself contributed to the divisions in the Corinthian community. In answering this attack on his credibility, Paul has explained that when he came, it was not to proclaim the gospel using eloquence, so that the faith of the Corinthians would depend not on his qualities as a speaker, but on the power of God alone. Paul continues his discussion about the wisdom of God, which earlier he described as “foolishness of the proclamation” meant for “the salvation of those who have faith. (1:21).

The wisdom of God, he says, has been hidden but now revealed through the Spirit (2:6-10). Just as the spirit within man knows the man’s thoughts and intentions hidden from others, so too, the Spirit scrutinizes the hidden thoughts of God (2:10b-11). This Spirit has been given to the baptized so that they too may understand those things that God desires to be revealed to them (v. 12).

In speaking about these realities, Paul does not use the embellishments of acceptable human discourse, but the language itself that the Spirit teaches, “describing spiritual realities in spiritual terms” (v. 13) This kind of language is unintelligible to the unspiritual man. The scholastics would say, this is so because there is no connaturality between the unspiritual man and the language of the Spirit. It would be like talking in Chinese to one who understands only Malayalem. For this latter what is being said would be gibberish, “foolishness” as Paul would say (v. 14). The spiritual person however would understand the language of the Spirit. And because he enjoys this connaturality with the Spirit and with the mind of God, he also shares in this latter’s exemption from human judgment (v. 15). It is for this reason that Paul has been unintelligible to those who think his proclamation sounds foolish. The Corinthians have been unspiritual and their present situation proves it (3:1 ff).

Sentence Flow

¹When I came to you, brothers and sisters¹,

²For I resolved

³I came to you

⁴and my message
and my proclamation

⁵so that your faith might rest

Observations and Outline

1. There are contrasts in “When I came (1)… I did not come (2)”;”persuasive words of wisdom … demonstration of spirit and power” (4); “human wisdom”… “power of God” (5)
2. the condition of Paul when he came is that of weakness, similar to the Christ he proclaimed, “him crucified” (vv. 2-3)

An outline of this brief section can be presented thus…

• Paul remembers the way he came to the Corinthians
  1. not with sublime words (1)
  2. resolving to know nothing else but Christ crucified (2)
  3. he came in fear and trembling (3)
  4. his message was a demonstration of power and spirit (4)
  5. his intention was so that the faith of the Corinthians may rest on the power of God, not on human wisdom (5)

Explanatory Notes of the NAB

The NAB gives comments on the words “mystery of God” (1), “him crucified” (2), and the reading for verse 4, “persuasion of wisdom” or “persuasive words of wisdom”.

“Mystery of God” is God’s secret, “known only to himself, and is his intention for salvation. This “secret” involves Jesus, see 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; 2:2.8-10.

The weakness of Christ crucified is similar to the condition of Paul when he first came to the Corinthians. Paul’s “fear and trembling” before the transcendence of God is compared to the “fear and trembling” that should characterize the Philippians’ response to their own call to salvation (Philippians 2:12).

Whatever the reading is preferred — “persuasion of wisdom” or “persuasive words of wisdom” — this is contrasted with the power of the cross.

Textual Parallels

v. 1 “words of wisdom” …

1 Corinthians 1:17
For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with the wisdom of human eloquence, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its meaning.

The parallel recalls the preceding section, 1 Corinthians 1:17.18-25 (see also following note on v. 2), where Paul stresses that “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved, the power of God” (v. 18)

v. 2 “and him crucified” …

1 Corinthians 1:23
but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,

Galatians 6:14
But may I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

v.4 “demonstration of spirit and power” …

1 Corinthians 4:20
For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.

Romans 15:19
by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit (of God), so that from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum I have finished preaching the gospel of Christ.

1 Thessalonians 1:5
For our gospel did not come to you in word alone, but also in power and in the holy Spirit and (with) much conviction. You know what sort of people we were (among) you for your sake.

The passages recalled here show that “power” refers to the power of the Holy Spirit who accompanied the apostles wherever the gospel was preached.

v. 5 “power of God” …

2 Corinthians 4:7
But we hold this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us.

The reference to 2 Corinthians 4:7 should be read within the context of 2 Corinthians 4:1-18 where Paul talks about his integrity as an apostle, bearing witness to the truth of the gospel with the signs of the “death of Christ” in his body, cf. vv. 8-11.

1. The Greek only has “adelphoi”, and — like its equivalent in Latin, “fratres” — it was sufficient to express the idea “brothers and sisters” when the addressees are mixed. In English, this is explicitated for reasons required by “inclusive language”.
2. Some manuscripts have “witness”, martyrion. The reading here follows the witness of earlier manuscripts. The choice is dictated by the fact that “martyrion” coming as it does from later mss., may have been due to a scribal mistake. Martyrion and mysterion look almost alike in Greek.

The question about divorce is relevant. People tend to have vague notions about marriage, love, commitment and family, that they miss the point of the contention that marriage should be until death. Today’s reading from Matthew 19:3-12 while not putting the question to rest is a testimony that Jesus, interpreting the Scriptures, clearly teaches that marriage is an institution meant for the fulfillment of the vocation of male and female, and that he cannot imagine it to be less than what God has revealed "since the beginning."

The reading can be divided into two parts, the latter of which is unique to Matthew: (a) the question of divorce (3-9), and (b) the possibility of celibacy (10-12). Verses 3-9 is a rewriting of Mark’s report about the question of divorce. Below is an illustration of how Matthew transposed elements of the conversation so as to present his own message.

Notice the following points:

1. In both Mark and Matthew, the teaching about divorce is the same: even before Moses’ law in Deuteronomy, God has intended that marriage should make both male and female into "one flesh", that is a complete human being.
2. In Mark, Jesus stresses the permanence of marriage. His teaching about remarriage after divorce — which would be equivalent to adultery — is a teaching given to the disciples in private. In Matthew, the Marcan conclusion becomes more pointed: those who remarry after a divorce commits the sin of adultery. He says this to the Pharisees who’ve asked him the question and to stress the idea that "from the beginning" God has willed the permanence of marriage.
3. In Matthew, the disciples react to Jesus’ teaching about the permanence of marriage and the implication that remarriage is tantamount to comitting adultery. This presents Jesus an occasion for presenting his teaching on the possibility of celibacy: of becoming eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of God. In Mark, the reaction of the disciples gives Jesus the opportunity to stress that to marry another after a divorce is tantamount to adultery.

In a milieu that allowed divorce for whatever reason whatsoever, Jesus affirms the teaching in Genesis of the permanence of marriage. To remarry after a divorce, as a general rule, is tantamount to adultery. The only exemption he makes is when divorce is due to the immorality of the female partner¹.

In the Catechism

1. Where Matthew was writing, only the males can initiate divorce procedures.

The question of Peter (Matthew 18:21-19:1) regarding forgiveness continues the one from the previous section about the brother who offends (Matthew 18:15-20). The process of fraternal correction described there is the protocol to follow in case there is a breakdown in a reconciliation in private. When the offending brother does say sorry, Jesus’ answer to Peter’s question becomes relevant; so does the following parable on the unforgiving servant.

"Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us" we pray in the Our Father. The motive that we give God for forgiveness is not His Name, nor our own pitiableness but our practice of forgiving others. We ask to be forgiven because we too forgive. This practice of forgiveness since it is given not only to members of the community of faith but also those who persecute them is something that sets the Christian community apart within a world that finds vengeance a normal and sometimes the honorable response to an offense.

In the first reading (Ezekiel 12), we find Ezekiel being asked by Yahweh to dramatize the exile. Before the other Israelites he becomes "a prophecy in action" (Harrington, OP). Isn’t this what Christians are asked to become, "prophecies in action", divine oracles that bring the message of forgiveness to all? When Christians practice forgiveness, they do not only bring the message, they also become the message.

Links to Bible Notes

• Dr. Enright on Forgiveness
• Sirach On Forgiveness: A doorway to the Lord’s Prayer
• Matthew 18:21-35: Forgiveness from the Heart

• Reading 1:  Ezekiel 1:2-5.24-28c
• Resp. Ps.:  Psalm 148:1-2.11-12,13,14
• Gospel   :  Matthew 17:22-27

The exchange between Peter and Jesus may probably have come from a moment in history when the Matthaean community was beginning to reconsider its relationship with the authorities of the temple and especially on the question of taxes. Jesus’ question to Peter should be understood in the light of the preceding question regarding the attitude of Jesus towards the temple tax. He pays them, according to Peter, and so at some point even the Christians — who were for a time practiced Judaism. After Peter’s answer, Jesus remarks that the subjects are exempt from taxation. The remark underscores the understanding that the Temple which points to the city of God has Jesus and his disciples for citizens and therefore these latter are exempt from taxation. But Jesus would not want to offend anyone so he still asks Peter to pay the temple tax, but this from a source that is provided not through human means: a fish from the sea.

Christians need not pay the temple tax, but they should still do so as not to offend anyone. If the community of Matthew were already thinking of separating from the Temple institution and its taxation, this "memory" of the Lord’s teaching about the temple tax would have been highly influential.

But how about a fisherman drawing the tax money from fish caught from the sea? In the Catechism (586) the passage is used as evidence that Jesus was not hostile to the institution of the Temple. The paragraph is silent about the fish.