John Wesley (NT Notes)

“And Sosthenes - A Corinthian, St. Paul's companion in travel. It was both humility and prudence in the apostle, thus to join his name with his own, in an epistle wherein he was to reprove so many irregularities. Sosthenes the brother - Probably this word is em…”

“With all that in every place - Nothing could better suit that catholic love which St. Paul labours to promote in this epistle, than such a declaration of his good wishes for every true Christian upon earth. Call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ - This pl…”

“The testimony of Christ - The gospel. Was confirmed among you - By these gifts attending it. They knew they had received these by the hand of Paul: and this consideration was highly proper, to revive in them their former reverence and affection for their spiri…”

“Waiting - With earnest desire. For the glorious Revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ - A sure mark of a true or false Christian, to long for, or dread, this Revelation.”

“Who will also - if you faithfully apply to him. In the day of Christ - Now it is our day, wherein we are to work out our salvation; then it will be eminently the day of Christ, and of his glory in the saints.”

“God is faithful - To all his promises; and therefore "to him that hath shall be given." By whom ye are called - A pledge of his willingness to save you unto the uttermost.”

“Now I exhort you - Ye have faith and hope; secure love also. By the endearing name of our Lord Jesus Christ - lnfinitely preferable to all the human names in which ye glory.”

“It hath been declared to me by them of the family of Chloe - Whom some suppose to have been the wife of Stephanas, and the mother of Fortunatus and Achaicus. By these three the Corinthians had sent their letter to St. Paul, chap. xvi, 17. That there are conten…”

“Now this I say - That is, what I mean is this: there are various parties among you, who set themselves, one against an other, in behalf of the several teachers they admire. And I of Christ - They spoke well, if they had not on this pretense despised their teac…”

“Is Christ divided - Are not all the members still under one head? Was not he alone crucified for you all; and were ye not all baptized in his name? The glory of Christ then is not to be divided between him and his servants; neither is the unity of the body to …”

“Lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect - The whole effect of St. Paul's preaching was owing to the power of God accompanying the plain declaration of that great truth, "Christ bore our sins upon the cross." But this effect might have been imput…”

“To them that perish - By obstinately rejecting the only name whereby they can be saved. But to us who are saved - Now saved from our sins, and in the way to everlasting salvation, it is the great instrument of the power of God.”

“Where is the wise? &c. - The deliverance of Judea from Sennacherib is what Isaiah refers to in these words; in a bold and beautiful allusion to which, the apostle in the clause that follows triumphs over all the opposition of human wisdom to the victorious gos…”

“For since in the wisdom of God - According to his wise disposals, leaving them to make the trial. The world - Whether Jewish or gentile, by all its boasted wisdom knew not God - Though the whole creation declared its Creator, and though he declared himself by …”

“We go on to preach, in a plain and historical, not rhetorical or philosophical, manner, Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumblingblock - Just opposite to the "signs" they demand.”

“But to them that are called - And obey the heavenly calling. Christ - With his cross, his death, his life, his kingdom. And they experience, first, that he is the power, then, that he is the wisdom, of God.”

“Because the foolishness of God - The gospel scheme, which the world judge to be mere foolishness, is wiser than the wisdom of men; and, weak as they account it, stronger than all the strength of men.”

“Behold your calling - What manner of men they are whom God calls. That not many wise men after the flesh - In the account of the world. Not many mighty - Men of power and authority.”

“Things that are not - The Jews frequently called the gentiles, "Them that are not," 2 Esdras vi. In so supreme contempt did they hold them. The things that are - In high esteem.”

“That no flesh - A fit appellation. Flesh is fair, but withering as grass. May glory before God - In God we ought to glory.”

“Of him - Out of his free grace and mercy. Are ye Engrafted into Christ Jesus, who is made unto us that believe wisdom, who were before utterly foolish and ignorant. Righteousness - The sole ground of our justification, who were before under the wrath and curse…”

“I determined not to know anything - To wave all my other knowledge, and not to preach anything, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified - That is, what he did, suffered, taught. A part is put for the whole.”

“And I was with you - At my first entrance. In weakness - Of body, 2 Cor. xii, 7 And in fear - Lest I should offend any. And in much trembling - The emotion of my mind affecting my very body.”

“And my speech in private, as well as my public preaching, was not with the persuasive words of human wisdom, such as the wise men of the world use; but with the demonstration of the Spirit and of power - With that powerful kind of demonstration, which flows fr…”

“Yet we speak wisdom - Yea, the truest and most excellent wisdom. Among the perfect - Adult, experienced Christians. By wisdom here he seems to mean, not the whole Christian doctrine, but the most sublime and abstruse parts of it.”