1 Corinthians 2
2
Proclaiming Christ Crucified
1And I, when I came to you, brothers,#2:1 Or brothers and sisters #ver. 4, 13; [2 Cor. 1:12]; See ch. 1:17 did not come proclaiming to you #See Rom. 16:25the testimony#2:1 Some manuscripts mystery (or secret) of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2For I decided to know nothing among you except #Gal. 6:14Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3And #Acts 18:1, 6, 12 I was with you #2 Cor. 11:30; 12:5, 9; 13:4, 9; Gal. 4:13in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of #ch. 4:20; Rom. 15:13, 19; 1 Thess. 1:5; 2 Pet. 1:16the Spirit and of power, 5so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men#2:5 The Greek word anthropoi can refer to both men and women but #2 Cor. 4:7; 6:7; [Zech. 4:6; 2 Cor. 10:4; 12:9]in the power of God.
Wisdom from the Spirit
6Yet among #Phil. 3:15; [ch. 3:1] the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not #[James 3:15] a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, #ch. 1:28who are doomed to pass away. 7But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, #Rom. 16:25, 26; Eph. 3:5, 9; Col. 1:26; 2 Tim. 1:9which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8None of #Acts 13:27; See Luke 24:20 the rulers of this age understood this, for #See Acts 3:17 if they had, they would not have crucified #James 2:1; [Ps. 24:7-10; Acts 7:2]the Lord of glory. 9But, as it is written,
# [Isa. 64:4] “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has #See Matt. 25:34 prepared #James 1:12for those who love him”—
10these things #Matt. 16:17; Gal. 1:12, 16; Eph. 3:3, 5; See John 14:26 God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even #[Rev. 2:24]the depths of God. 11For who knows a person’s thoughts #Prov. 20:27except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12Now #Rom. 8:15 we have received not #[1 John 4:4]the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13And we impart this #ver. 1, 4; See ch. 1:17 in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, #2 Cor. 10:12interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.#2:13 Or interpreting spiritual truths in spiritual language, or comparing spiritual things with spiritual
14The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are #ch. 1:18 folly to him, and #Rom. 8:7he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15The #ch. 3:1; 14:37; Gal. 6:1; [Prov. 28:5]spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16#Cited from Isa. 40:13; See Rom. 11:34 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But #[John 15:15]we have the mind of Christ.
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The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
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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.