The Spirit and the Cross

This dissertation focuses on why Paul articulates and emphasizes the Spirit's essential role in the proclamation of the cross, the mediation of divine wisdom, and the exercise of communal discernment.

This study explores, by way of a close reading of 1 Cor 2.1-3.4, Paul's teaching on the role of the Holy Spirit. Specifically, this dissertation focuses on why Paul articulates and emphasizes the Spirit's essential role in the proclamation of the cross, the mediation of divine wisdom, and the exercise of communal discernment. In addition, this study also investigates how Paul’s pneumatological teachings function as a means of assessment with regard to the Corinthian situation (1 Cor 5–15) and thus, why the textual unit in which it appears, occurs at such an early stage in the apostle’s argument.