What is the guff?
Answered from the commentary of Morrish Bible Dictionary and Raymond K. Campbell
The guff is a term of contempt for what is worthless and not worth listening to, and is associated with what is profane. It can also mean unintelligible sounds and cries—peeping, whispering, or muttering—which were ascribed to evil spirits.
Verses: 1 Corinthians 1:18, 1 Corinthians 1:20, 1 Corinthians 1:21, 1 Corinthians 1:22, 1 Corinthians 1:23, 1 Corinthians 1:24, 1 Corinthians 1:25, 1 Corinthians 2:14, 2 Corinthians 4:3, 2 Corinthians 4:4, Colossians 2:8, 1 Timothy 6:20, 1 Timothy 6:21, 2 Timothy 2:16, 2 Timothy 2:17, 2 Timothy 2:18, 1 Peter 3:15, 1 Peter 3:16
The above is AI generated summary based on the writers below.
What the commentators say
The passages the answer is drawn from, the most direct first, with the words that bear on the question marked.
A term of contempt for anything not worth listening to, associated with what is profane. Timothy was warned against such. 1 Tim. 4:7.
An Aramaic word signifying 'worthless,' a term of great contempt. Matt. 5:22.
Scrapings, refuse. Lam. 3:45; 1 Cor. 4:13.
The refuse of threshed and winnowed grain — the husk of the wheat. Used symbolically for that which is quickly consumed, or easily swept away by the wind — worthless people. Ps. 1:4;
Foolish. Jer. 4:22. Anglo-Saxon, sot, stupid.
g. Unintelligible sounds and cries of peeping, whispering, muttering, ascribed to evil spirits in Isa. 8:19; 29:4.
To say, as some have, in attempting to evade the force of this passage, that the word here means to "chatter," gossip, or whisper during "service," is but to betray the weakness of their position, when they must resort to such arguments to defend their opposition to what the apostle lays down in such plain terms.
The rough prickly stomach of ruminating animals. Deut. 18:3. Old expositors considered an animal to consist of three parts, the head, the legs, and the body, and that the priest had a portion of each.
Fat, fatness, lumps of fat. Job 15:27.
To accuse or betray. Isa. 16:3; Prov. 27:16; Prov. 29:24; Matt. 26:73. From the Anglo-Saxon.
Verses
- 1 Corinthians 1:18For the word of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but to us that are saved it is God's power.
- 1 Corinthians 1:20–2520Where [is the] wise? where scribe? where disputer of this world? has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom has not known God, God has been pleased by the foolishness of the preaching to save those that believe. 22Since Jews indeed ask for signs, and Greeks seek wisdom; 23but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews an offence, and to nations foolishness; 24but to those that [are] called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ God's power and God's wisdom. 25Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
- 1 Corinthians 2:14But [the] natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him; and he cannot know [them] because they are spiritually discerned;