1 Corinthians 2
2
1-2You’ll remember, friends, that when I first came to you to let you in on God’s sheer genius, I didn’t try to impress you with polished speeches and the latest philosophy. I deliberately kept it plain and simple: first Jesus and who he is; then Jesus and what he did—Jesus crucified.
3-5I was unsure of how to go about this, and felt totally inadequate—I was scared to death, if you want the truth of it—and so nothing I said could have impressed you or anyone else. But the Message came through anyway. God’s Spirit and God’s power did it, which made it clear that your life of faith is a response to God’s power, not to some fancy mental or emotional footwork by me or anyone else.
6-10a We, of course, have plenty of wisdom to pass on to you once you get your feet on firm spiritual ground, but it’s not popular wisdom, the fashionable wisdom of high-priced experts that will be out-of-date in a year or so. God’s wisdom is something mysterious that goes deep into the interior of his purposes. You don’t find it lying around on the surface. It’s not the latest message, but more like the oldest—what God determined as the way to bring out his best in us, long before we ever arrived on the scene. The experts of our day haven’t a clue about what this eternal plan is. If they had, they wouldn’t have killed the Master of the God-designed life on a cross. That’s why we have this Scripture text:
No one’s ever seen or heard anything like this,
Never so much as imagined anything quite like it—
What God has arranged for those who love him.
But you’ve seen and heard it because God by his Spirit has brought it all out into the open before you.
10b-13 The Spirit, not content to flit around on the surface, dives into the depths of God, and brings out what God planned all along. Who ever knows what you’re thinking and planning except you yourself? The same with God—except that he not only knows what he’s thinking, but he lets us in on it. God offers a full report on the gifts of life and salvation that he is giving us. We don’t have to rely on the world’s guesses and opinions. We didn’t learn this by reading books or going to school; we learned it from God, who taught us person-to-person through Jesus, and we’re passing it on to you in the same firsthand, personal way.
14-16The unspiritual self, just as it is by nature, can’t receive the gifts of God’s Spirit. There’s no capacity for them. They seem like so much silliness. Spirit can be known only by spirit—God’s Spirit and our spirits in open communion. Spiritually alive, we have access to everything God’s Spirit is doing, and can’t be judged by unspiritual critics. Isaiah’s question, “Is there anyone around who knows God’s Spirit, anyone who knows what he is doing?” has been answered: Christ knows, and we have Christ’s Spirit.
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
1 Corinthians 2
2
1 Corinthians 2
1¶ And I, brothers, when I came to you, came not with puffed up speech or wisdom to declare unto you the testimony of God.
2For I judged not to know anything among you, except 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 with enticing words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
5that your faith should not be founded in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
6¶ For we speak perfect wisdom of God, and not the wisdom of this age nor of the princes of this age, that come to nought,
7but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God predestined before the ages unto our glory,
8which none of the princes of this age knew (for had they known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory).
9But as it is written, That which eye has not seen nor ear heard neither has entered into the heart of man is that which God has prepared for those that love him.
10But God has revealed this unto us by his Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.
11For who among men knows the things of man, except the spirit of man which is in him? Even so no one has known the things of God, but the Spirit of God.
12Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that God has given us.
13Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but with doctrine of the Holy Spirit, jointly fitting spiritual things by spiritual means.
14But the natural man does not perceive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
15But he that is spiritual discerns all things, yet he is discerned by no one.
16For who has known the understanding of the Lord? Who has instructed him? But we have the understanding of Christ.
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The Jubilee Bible 2000 (JUB) by Ransom Press International