1 Corinthians 2
2
Paul’s Message and Preaching
1 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come with superiority of discourse or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony* of God. 2 For I resolved not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in great trembling. 4 And my word and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith would not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
The Wisdom of God
6 Yet we speak wisdom among the mature, but it is a wisdom not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are being brought to nothing. 7 But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom* that has been hidden, which God predestined before the ages for our glory, 8 which none of the rulers of this age has known. For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But, just as it is written:
“Things which eye has not seen
and ear has not heard,
and have not entered the heart of man,
all that God has prepared for those who love Him”*—
10 For to us God has revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who among men** knows the things of a man* except the spirit of the man that is within him? So also no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.
12 Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God,* so that we may know the things that have been graciously given to us by God, 13 things which we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the* Spirit, expounding* spiritual concepts with Spirit-taught words. 14 But the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God,* for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But the spiritual person judges all things, yet he himself is judged by no one. 16 For “who has known the mind of the Lord? Who will instruct Him?”* But we have the mind of Christ.*
Notes
1 Some ancient manuscripts read the mystery
7 The noun wisdom is supplied on contextual considerations for the sake of clarity
9 Quoted from Is. 64:4
11 Or people, as the term is understood in a generic sense
11 Two ancient Greek manuscripts omit among men
11 Or person, as the term is understood in a generic sense. Used twice in this verse, and elsewhere in v. 14
12 Greek the Spirit from God
13 Some ancient manuscripts insert holy at this point
13 Or combining
14 One ancient Greek manuscript omits the genitive phrase of God
16 Quoted from Is. 40:13
16 Some ancient manuscripts read of [ the ] Lord in place of of Christ
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Copyright © 2026 Michael Adeyemi Adegbola. This Scripture text is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).
