1 Corinthians 2
2
The new wisdom
1So I never thought in coming amongst you to be able by my own persuasiveness, logic or rhetoric to make a message of God, a revelation of the mystery of His being, understood by you. It could never have come to you through such human means as that. 2And so I judged that to know nought but Jesus Christ and him crucified was the way, the only way of this Gospel, which is demonstrated divinely by the Spirit and by power, not by persuasive preaching. 3I was as nothing in myself, only conscious of my weakness, and full of deep reverence and fear, 4yes, even of what I had to say, which could not express itself in clever words; 5and so your faith was built not on any man’s personal influence and wisdom, but on divine power and its demonstration. 6Yet it is a wisdom that I speak, a deep and holy wisdom known to the perfect, unknown to the passing world of the flesh, and unknown to the powers that control that world, powers and influences which even now, are breaking up and vanishing. 7This wisdom of God is spoken by me in a mystery. Unknown to the former generations of the world, it was to be our glory, our light, and God’s fore-ordination of it preceded all other things. 8Unknown too to all powers of the mortal state, for they crucified its Lord. Had they known this hidden delectable wisdom, would they have crucified him? 9They knew it not, “for eye,” says the scripture, “hath not seen it, ear hath not heard it, the heart of mankind has not received the things that God makes ready for those that love Him.” (Isa. 44:4.)
Deep things can only be apprehended spiritually
10So it was through the Spirit, through revelation that we learned them. The very depths of God are searched by the Spirit, which also sheds light on all things; and the Spirit alone can know and reveal them, nought else; 11no more than one can tell any man’s thoughts that he thinks in himself [none can tell them save the thinker himself], so none knoweth God’s thoughts, but God Himself, the Spirit. 12And in our hearts and minds there now doth work not that spirit, which is the influence and animal intelligence of the world, but the divine Spirit, and this it is which reveals to us those things that are bestowed on man by God. 13It is that legacy which passes from God to man, those messages and bestowals which man receives from God which I teach you of, and how can I make it known by an utterance invented in the schools of learning, how can I teach it except as the Spirit teaches it, representing spiritual things in a spiritual method, to be spiritually discerned? Only thus can it be taught, for the materially minded man, who thinks through the senses, is totally and utterly ignorant of God’s spiritual messages. They are to him absolute foolishness, and he cannot reach them, for they are only made known to the spiritual character. 14Now the true spiritual man has all experience at his feet to dispose of, to reject or accept according to the dictates of the Spirit, he himself being beyond the reach of the things wherein this judgment operates. 15For it is as spiritual beings, and not carnal, that we possess the mind of Christ. None teacheth us or judgeth us. 16“Who has known the mind of the Lord or being His counsellor hath taught Him?”
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1 Corinthians 2: GWC
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Translated in 1916, published in 1937.
1 Corinthians 2
2
1And I, having come unto you, brethren, came — not in superiority of discourse or wisdom — declaring to you the testimony of God,
2for I decided not to know any thing among you, except Jesus Christ, and him crucified;
3and I, in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling, was with you;
4and my word and my preaching was not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power —
5that your faith may not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
6And wisdom we speak among the perfect, and wisdom not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age — of those becoming useless,
7but we speak the hidden wisdom of God in a secret, that God foreordained before the ages to our glory,
8which no one of the rulers of this age did know, for if they had known, the Lord of the glory they would not have crucified;
9but, according as it hath been written, ‘What eye did not see, and ear did not hear, and upon the heart of man came not up, what God did prepare for those loving Him — ’
10but to us did God reveal [them] through His Spirit, for the Spirit all things doth search, even the depths of God,
11for who of men hath known the things of the man, except the spirit of the man that [is] in him? so also the things of God no one hath known, except the Spirit of God.
12And we the spirit of the world did not receive, but the Spirit that [is] of God, that we may know the things conferred by God on us,
13which things also we speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Holy Spirit, with spiritual things spiritual things comparing,
14and the natural man doth not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for to him they are foolishness, and he is not able to know [them], because spiritually they are discerned;
15and he who is spiritual, doth discern indeed all things, and he himself is by no one discerned;
16for who did know the mind of the Lord that he shall instruct Him? and we — we have the mind of Christ.
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