《Poole’s English Annotations on the Holy Bible – 1 Corinthians》(Matthew Poole)
Commentator
Matthew Poole (1624 - 1679) was an English Nonconformist theologian.
He was born at York, the son of Francis Pole, but he spelled his name Poole, and in Latin Polus; his mother was a daughter of Alderman Toppins there. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, from 1645, under John Worthington. Having graduated B.A. at the beginning of 1649, he succeeded Anthony Tuckney, in the sequestered rectory of St Michael le Querne, then in the fifth classis of the London province, under the parliamentary system of presbyterianism. This was his only preferment. He proceeded M.A. in 1652. On 14 July 1657 he was one of eleven Cambridge graduates incorporated M.A. at Oxford on occasion of the visit of Richard Cromwell as chancellor.
Poole was a jure divino presbyterian, and an authorised defender of the views on ordination of the London provincial assembly, as formulated by William Blackmore. After the Restoration, in a sermon of 26 August 1660 before the lord mayor Sir Thomas Aleyn at St Paul's Cathedral, he made a case for simplicity of public worship. On the passing of the Uniformity Act 1662 he resigned his living, and was succeeded by R. Booker on 29 August 1662.
Perhaps the only true rival to Matthew Henry! A standard for more than 400 years, Poole's insightful commentary continues to be a trusted resource for pastors and laypeople. Offering verse-by-verse exposition, he also includes summaries for each chapter and book, questions and answers, information on cultural context, historical impact, and cross-references. Practical, readable, and applicable.
Though he occasionally preached and printed some tracts, Poole made no attempt to gather a congregation. He had a patrimony of £100 a year, on which he lived.
He was one of those who presented to the king 'a cautious and moderate thanksgiving' for the indulgence of 15 March 1672, and were offered royal bounty. Gilbert Burnet reports, on Edward Stillingfleet's authority, that Poole received for two years a pension of £50. Early in 1675 he entered with Richard Baxter into a negotiation for comprehension, promoted by John Tillotson, which came to nothing. According to Henry Sampson, Poole made provision for a nonconformist ministry and day-school at Tunbridge Wells, Kent.
In his depositions relative to the alleged Popish plot (September 1678), Titus Oates had represented Poole as marked for assassination, because of his tract (1666) on the Nullity of the Romish Faith. Poole gave some credit to this, reportedly after a scare on returning home one evening near Clerkenwell with Josiah Chorley. Poole left England, and settled at Amsterdam. Here he died on 12 October 1679 (N.S.), and was buried in a vault of the English Reformed Church, Amsterdam. His wife was buried on 11 August 1668 at St Andrew Holborn, Stillingfleet preaching the funeral sermon. He left a son, who died in 1697.
In 1654 Poole published a tract against John Biddle. In 1658 he put forward a scheme for a scholarship for university courses, for those intending to enter the ministry. The plan was approved by Worthington and Tuckney, and had the support also of John Arrowsmith, Ralph Cudworth, William Dillingham, and Benjamin Whichcote. Money was raised, and supported William Sherlock at Peterhouse. His Vox Clamantis gives his view of the ecclesiastical situation after 1662.
The work with which his name is principally associated is the Synopsis criticorum biblicorum (5 vols fol., 1669-1676), in which he summarizes the views of one hundred and fifty biblical critics. On the suggestion of William Lloyd, Poole undertook the Synopsis as a digest of biblical commentators, from 1666. It took ten years, with relaxation often at Henry Ashurst's house. The prospectus of Poole's work mustered of eight bishops and five continental scholars. A patent for the work was obtained on 14 October 1667, and the first volume was ready for the press, when difficulties were raised by Cornelius Bee, publisher of the Critici Sacri (1660); the matter was decided in Poole's favour. Rabbinical sources and Roman Catholic commentators are included; little is taken from John Calvin, nothing from Martin Luther. The book was written in Latin and is currently being translated into English by the Matthew Poole Project.
Poole also wrote English Annotations on the Holy Bible, a work which was completed by several of his Nonconformist brethren, and published in 2 vols fol. in 1683. The work was continued by others (last edition, three volumes, 1840). This work has chapter outlines which are among the best available.
00 Introduction
1 CORINTHIANS
THE ARGUMENT
Corinth (the inhabitants of which are called Corinthians) was an eminent city of Achaia, (that Achaia which is now called the Morea), and was situated on an isthmus, or neck of land, betwixt the Aegean and Ionian Seas; so was very convenient for merchandise, and by merchandise came to great riches, which gave them great temptations to luxury, drunkenness, whoredom, &c. They were very infamous for the latter, as we read in writers, and grown to that impudence, that they made the increase of harlots a part of their prayers to their idols, and made the bringing of harlots into the city a part of their vows. Lais was a harlot amongst them, very famous in civil history. And as pride usually attendeth wealth, so they also were a people very proud and puffed up. They were also anciently famous for pagan learning, and had amongst them Stoics and Epicureans, who laughed at the resurrection of the body, and looked upon incest, adultery, and fornication, as very venial things, if at all unlawful. We read of Paul's first coming thither from Athens, Acts 18:1, where, Acts 16:11, he continued eighteen months; there he converted Crispus, 1 Corinthians 1:8, and Sosthenes, and many believed and were baptized. Paul went from thence to Ephesus,, 1 Corinthians 16:18-19. To the church thus planted at Corinth Paul writeth this Epistle, at what time is not certain; but he is thought to have written it from Ephesus, whither he came, Acts 19:1, the second time, and, as appears from 1 Corinthians 1:10, was going and coming to and from that city between two and three years. The occasion of his writing this Epistle will appear to any who consideringly reads it. He had heard from some who were of the house of Chloe, 1 Corinthians 1:11, of factions and contentions that were amongst them, and had heard it reported that they suffered an incestuous person to abide in their communion, 1 Corinthians 5:1. They had also written to him for his resolution in several cases and questions about marriage, divorce, &c. He had also heard of several disorders amongst them relating to their communion in the Lord's supper, and of some amongst them who denied the resurrection. For the allaying of these heats, and quieting their divisions, and for the direction of them in those cases about which they wrote to him, and the setting them right in the doctrine of the resurrection, and directing them in the true and profitable use of their gifts, and in the right celebration of the Lord's supper, and the quickening the exercise of their charity, he writes this Epistle; which is supposed to be placed in our Bibles next to the Epistle to the Romans, (though plainly written in order of time before), because that as that Epistle most fully discourseth the doctrine of justification, so this most fully resolves questions concerning church order and government. It is a book of holy writ concerning the Divine authority of which there was never any doubt, nor hath any portion of holy writ (for the quantity of it) a greater variety of matter, nor more of those dosnohta, things hard to be understood, which St. Peter (2 Peter 3:16) tells us are in this apostle's Epistles; the difficulty of which much ariseth from our ignorance of some rites used in the primitive church, but long since disused, and the usages of that country different from ours.
01 Chapter 1
Verse 1
1 Corinthians Chapter 1
1 Corinthians 1:1-3 After saluting the church at Corinth,
1 Corinthians 1:4-9 and thanking God for his grace toward them,
1 Corinthians 1:10 Paul exhorteth them to unity,
1 Corinthians 1:11-16 and reproveth their dissensions.
1 Corinthians 1:17-25 The plain doctrine of the gospel, how foolish soever
in the eyes of the world, is the power and wisdom of
God to the salvation of believers.
1 Corinthians 1:26-29 God, to take away human boasting, hath not called the
wise, the mighty, the noble; but the foolish, the
weak, the despised among men.
1 Corinthians 1:30,31 Christ is our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption.
Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ: our common custom is to subscribe our name to the bottom of our letters; it seems by the apostolical Epistles, that their fashion was otherwise: he elsewhere telleth us, that it was his token in every epistle, which makes some doubt, whether that to the Hebrews was wrote by him; but others think it is there concealed, for the particular spite the Jews had to him. He had the name of Saul as well as Paul, as we read, Acts 7:58 9:1: whether he had two names, (as many of the Jews had), or Saul was the name by which he was called before his conversion, and Paul his name after he was converted, or after he was made a citizen of Rome, (for Paul is a Roman name, nor do we read that after his conversion he was ever called by the name of Saul), is not worth our disputing. He was a man of Tarsus in Cilicia, by his nation a Jew, both by father and mother; an Hebrew of the Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee, bred up at the feet of Gamaliel, one of their great doctors; he was also citizen of Rome, as himself tells us, Acts 21:39 22:3,27 Php 3:5; by his trade a tent maker, Acts 18:3; a great zealot for the Jewish ceremonies and law, and upon that score a great persecutor, consenting to the death of Stephen, and breathing out threatenings against Christians. Of his miraculous conversion we read, in Acts 9:1-43, as also of his being called to be an apostle, not one of those first sent out by Christ, but yet called: he gives king Agrippa a full account of his calling, Acts 26:12-19.
Through the will of God; so as he was an apostle by the will of God, God's special revelation from heaven: he did not thrust himself into the employment, but was sent of God in an extraordinary manner; not only mediately, (as all ministers are), but by an immediate call and mission.
And Sosthenes our brother: in the salutation prefixed to this Epistle, he joineth Sosthenes, whom he calls his brother. Of this Sosthenes we read, Acts 18:17; he was a chief ruler of the synagogue, but converted to Christianity; Paul disdaineth not to call him his brother.
Verse 2
Unto the church of God which is at Corinth; unto those in Corinth who having received the doctrine of the gospel, and owned Jesus Christ as their Saviour, were united in one ecclesiastical body for the worship of God, and communion one with another. Corinth was a famous city in Achaia, (which Achaia was joined to Greece by a neck of land betwixt the Aegean and Ionian Seas), it grew the most famous mart of all Greece. Paul came thither from Athens, Acts 18:1.
Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue there, believed, upon Paul’s preaching; so did many Corinthians, and were baptized, 1 Corinthians 1:9. He stayed there eighteen months, 1 Corinthians 1:11; there Sosthenes (mentioned 1 Corinthians 1:1) was converted; from thence Paul went to Ephesus, 1 Corinthians 1:19. These believers were those here called the church of God at Corinth, to whom he writes this Epistle (as it should seem from 1 Corinthians 16:8) from Ephesus, where Paul stayed three years, Acts 20:31. The members of this church the apostle calleth such as are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints: whether by the term the apostle meaneth only such as by the preaching of the gospel were separated from the heathens at Corinth, and professed faith in Christ, (as, Acts 15:9, the apostle saith the Gentiles’ hearts were purified by faith), or such in Corinth as were really regenerated, and had their hearts renewed and changed, is not easy to determine: both of them are saints by calling; the former are called externally by the preaching of the gospel, the other internally and effectually by the operation of the Spirit of grace. It is most probable, that St. Paul intended this Epistle for the whole body of those that professed the Christian religion in Corinth, though in writing of it he had a more special respect to those who were truly sanctified in Christ by the renewing of the Holy Ghost. Nor doth Paul only respect those that lived in Corinth, but he directs his Epistle to all those who in any place of Achaia called upon the name of Jesus Christ, whom he calleth their Lord, and our Lord: which is an eminent place to prove the Divine nature of Christ; he is not only called our Lord, our common Lord, but he is made the object of invocation and Divine worship: and it teacheth us, that none but such as call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, are fit matter for a gospel church; which both excludes such as deny the Godhead of Christ, and such as live without God in the world, without performance of religious homage to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, and owning him as their Lord.
Verse 3
This is the common salutation in all Paul’s Epistles, only in one or two mercy is also added.
Grace signifies free love.
Peace signifies either a reconciliation with God, or brotherly love and unity each with other: See Poole on "Romans 1:7". The apostle wisheth them spiritual blessings, and the greatest spiritual blessings, grace and peace, and that not from and with men, but from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.