Wrangle wrangle wrangle

“The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for,
“Who has known the mind of the Lord
so as to instruct him?”
But we have the mind of Christ.
Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly —mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans?

1 Corinthians 2:14-3:4, NIV, my emphasis

It is not a new thought that the artificial divisions of biblical books into chapters (and even into verses) can be a hindrance to understanding. At the very least, it is easy to assume a change of topic when a new chapter starts.

The passage above begs a question: translators of all persuasions appear to have assumed that chapter 2 of 1 Corinthians is about Spiritual Wisdom, and that chapter 3 is about immature Corinthians. But is this correct? As a result of seeing chapter two as a unit complete in itself, and chapter three as a new subject, they may have failed to see a more positive and constructive alternative reading of this passage.

In particular, there are three occurrences of ἀνακρίνω (interrogate or enquire into) in I Cor 2:14 and 15. You can see all three of them bolded (non-italicised) above. Every mainstream translation I have looked at follows the King James, with its “yet he himself is judged of no man”. The NIV shows some awareness of the potential problem, and tones it down to “but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments”. But still: I wonder how many leaders have started well, and then lost their way, seeing a justification for their lack of accountability in these verses?

When you remove the chapter break and check out ἀνακρίνω in depth you may see a very different implication in these verses; ἀνακρίνω in the middle voice has a very distinct twist on the root meaning of the verb.

Perhaps one more thing to say in preface: Paul clearly gets pleasure out of repeating cognate words rapidly and with different usages and implications. For example, earlier in chapter 2 we have

…ἀλλ’ ἐν διδακτοῖς πνεύματος, πνευματικοῖς πνευματικὰ συγκρίνοντες.

Which is very tricky to render in English, but maybe “…but in teaching things of the Spirit, combining spiritual things spiritually.” (Or simply “combining spiritual things in / by / or for spiritual things.”) The point is that Paul does indulge in this kind of wordplay.

So in verses 14 and 15 we have variants of ἀνακρίνω three times. The first and third occurrences are identical in orthography (ἀνακρίνεται), while the second is ἀνακρίνει, (3rd person singular present indicative active, “he enquires into”). But do the two occurrences of ἀνακρίνεται have exactly the same meaning? The first ἀνακρίνεται is fairly clearly 3rd person singular present indicative passive (“is enquired into spiritually…”), but what about the last occurrence, also ἀνακρίνεται? In the context (and grammatically) 3rd person singular aorist subjunctive middle makes perfect sense. In that case, ie the middle voice, the verse is very different and should read something like this:

“The spiritual man enquires into all things, but he should wrangle with no one.”

“Dispute with” would be equally fine. And ὑπ’ οὐδενὸς can be read as the simple “with no one”, instead of the more involved “under or by no one”.

And look what happens when we make this shift of voice and perspective. Paul is talking about spiritual wisdom, and what it looks like, and the fact that while spiritual people are meant to enquire into everything, they should dispute with no one; and then goes on to tell the Corinthians he couldn’t treat them as spiritual people because there is still jealousy and strife with people saying “I follow Paul” and “I follow Apollos”. In other words, they are actively doing what he says spiritual people should not do: wrangle, wrangle, wrangle.

And that makes a smooth and continuous argument from chapter 2 to chapter 3. (Actually, all the way from chapter 1, I would argue.)

So yes: if you are spiritual, you should absolutely be asking the Spirit for insight into anything and everything. But no, you shouldn’t be using that to start fights and disputes and schisms in the body of Christ (nor anywhere else).

Even if you are seeing that something is wrong, there are positive and constructive ways to handle that (always requiring peace and grace, and sometimes a very great deal of courage and perseverence). But we can leave the wrangling to others.