1 Corinthians
Chapter 2
Overview
Paul reminds the Corinthian Christians how he first spoke among them. He did not try to impress them with polished arguments, even though their culture greatly admired clever public speakers. Instead, he centered his message on Jesus’ crucifixion and trusted God’s power to make it convincing. Paul then describes a deeper wisdom: God’s long-hidden purpose, which the world’s rulers failed to understand. This wisdom is revealed through God’s Spirit, who enables people to understand God’s generous gifts and to see reality from the Messiah’s point of view.
1Brothers and sisters, when I came to you, I did not use impressive speech or human wisdom as I announced what God had made known.
2I decided to concentrate on one thing while I was among you: Jesus the Messiah, crucified.
3I was with you in weakness, fear, and intense trembling.
4My words and my proclamation did not rely on wisdom’s persuasive speech. Instead, they demonstrated the Spirit’s power,
5so that your trust would rest not on human wisdom but on God’s power.
6Yet we do speak wisdom among mature people. It is not the wisdom of this present age or of this age’s rulers, who are being brought to nothing.
7Instead, we speak about God’s wisdom, which had been hidden as a mystery. Before time began, God had already planned this wisdom for our glory.
8None of this age’s rulers understood it. If they had understood, they would not have crucified the glorious Lord.
9Rather, it is as Scripture says: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.”
10For God revealed these things to us through the Spirit. The Spirit examines everything, even the deepest things of God.
11Who knows a person’s inner thoughts except that person’s own spirit within? In the same way, no one has known God’s thoughts except God’s Spirit.
12We have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who comes from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.
13We speak about these things not in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining what comes from the Spirit in a Spirit-guided way.
14A person limited to ordinary human understanding does not accept what comes from God’s Spirit. It seems foolish to that person, who cannot understand it because it can be rightly understood only through the Spirit.
15But the person guided by the Spirit can evaluate everything, while no one can evaluate that person.
16For “Who has understood the Lord’s mind well enough to instruct him?” But we have the Messiah’s mind.