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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Translated in 1916, published in 1937.
1 Corinthians 2
2
Proclaiming Christ Crucified
1When I came to you, brothers and sisters,#2.1 Gk brothers I did not come proclaiming the mystery#2.1 Other ancient authorities read testimony of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. 2For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. 4My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom,#2.4 Other ancient authorities read the persuasiveness of wisdom but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.
The True Wisdom of God
6Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. 7But we speak God's wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the human heart conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—
10these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God's except the Spirit of God. 12Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. 13And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual.#2.13 Or interpreting spiritual things in spiritual language, or comparing spiritual things with spiritual
14Those who are unspiritual#2.14 Or natural do not receive the gifts of God's Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else's scrutiny.
16“For who has known the mind of the Lord
so as to instruct him?”
But we have the mind of Christ.
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New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.