1 Corinthians 2
2
1Brothers and sisters, when I came to you, I didn’t speak about God’s mystery #2:1 Some manuscripts and translations read “testimony.” as if it were some kind of brilliant message or wisdom. 2While I was with you, I decided to deal with only one subject—Jesus Christ, who was crucified. 3When I came to you, I was weak. I was afraid and very nervous. 4I didn’t speak my message with persuasive intellectual arguments. I spoke my message with a show of spiritual power 5so that your faith would not be based on human wisdom but on God’s power.
6However, we do use wisdom to speak to those who are mature. It is a wisdom that doesn’t belong to this world or to the rulers of this world who are in power today and gone tomorrow. 7We speak about the mystery of God’s wisdom. It is a wisdom that has been hidden, which God had planned for our glory before the world began. 8Not one of the rulers of this world has known it. If they had, they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory. 9But as Scripture says:
“No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
and no mind has imagined
the things that God has prepared
for those who love him.”
10God has revealed those things to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches everything, especially the deep things of God. 11After all, who knows everything about a person except that person’s own spirit? In the same way, no one has known everything about God except God’s Spirit. 12Now, we didn’t receive the spirit that belongs to the world. Instead, we received the Spirit who comes from God so that we could know the things which God has freely given us. 13We don’t speak about these things using teachings that are based on intellectual arguments like people do. Instead, we use the Spirit’s teachings. We explain spiritual things to those who have the Spirit.#2:13 Or “We explain spiritual things in spiritual words.”
14A person who isn’t spiritual doesn’t accept the teachings of God’s Spirit. He thinks they’re nonsense. He can’t understand them because a person must be spiritual to evaluate them. 15Spiritual people evaluate everything but are subject to no one’s evaluation.
16“Who has known the mind of the Lord
so that he can teach him?”
However, we have the mind of Christ.
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1 Corinthians 2: GW
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GOD'S WORD® Translation ©1995, 2003, 2013, 2014, 2019, 2020 by God's Word to the Nations Mission Society. All rights reserved.
1 Corinthians 2
2
1AND I, brethren, when I came to you, came not in loftiness of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of Christ.
2For I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
3And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.
4And my speech and my preaching was not in the persuasive words of human wisdom, but in shewing of the Spirit and power;
5That your faith might not stand on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.
6Howbeit we speak wisdom among the perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, neither of the princes of this world that come to nought;
7But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, a wisdom which is hidden, which God ordained before the world, unto our glory:
8Which none of the princes of this world knew; for if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory.
9But, as it is written: That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him.
10But to us God hath revealed them, by this Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
11For what man knoweth the things of a man, but the spirit of a man that is in him? So the things also that are of God no man knoweth, but the Spirit of God.
12Now we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that is of God; that we may know the things that are given us from God.
13Which things also we speak, not in the learned words of human wisdom; but in the doctrine of the Spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
14But the sensual man perceiveth not these things that are of the Spirit of God; for it is foolishness to him, and he cannot understand, because it is spiritually examined.
15But the spiritual man judgeth all things; and he himself is judged of no man.
16For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that we may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.
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An historical text maintained by the British and Foreign Bible Society.