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feet on firm spiritual ground, but it’s not popular wisdom, the fashionable wisdom of high-priced experts that will be out-of-date in a year or so.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
1When I came to you, Achim b'Moshiach, I did not come preaching and announcing to you the sod Hashem (mystery of G-d) as a ba'al melitzot (rhetorician, fine talker) or in the excellence of chochmah.
2For I made the decision not to have da'as of anything among you except Moshiach and nivlato al haEtz#2:2 Dt 21:23 (his body — gufa, bar-minen — on the Boim [Yiddish for tree]).
3And I came to you#2:3 Ac 18:1 in weakness#2:3 1C 1:25,27 and in yir'at Shomayim and in fear and in much trembling I was with you,
4And my speech and my hachrazah (proclamation, kyrygma, preaching) to you of the Besuras HaGeulah of Hashem was not in persuasive words but in the demonstration of the Ruach Hakodesh and the gevurat Hashem (power of G-d),#2:4 1C 1:17
5That the#2:5 orthodox Jewish emunah (faith) of you may not be in the [Olam Hazeh] “chochmah” of Bnei Adam, but in the gevurat Hashem.#2:5 1:17
6But we do speak chochmah (wisdom) to the man who is mevugar (mature, grown up), to those with mature ruchaniyut (spirituality in Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach), yet, it is a chochmah (wisdom) not of the Olam Hazeh, neither of the rulers of the Olam Hazeh,#2:6 Ro 13:3 the ones being brought to naught.#2:6 Ps 146:4
7But we speak the chochmah of Hashem in a hidden sod (mystery),#2:7 1C 2:1 which was nigzar merosh (determined from the beginning, preordained, predestined, decided beforehand) by Hashem lifnei yemei haOlam (before the days of eternity) for our kavod (glory);#2:7 Ro 8:29-30
8A chochmah which not one of the rulers of the Olam Hazeh has known, for, if they had had da'as, they would not have made talui al HaEtz HaKelalat Hashem#2:8 Dt 21:23 (being hanged on the Tree of the Curse of G-d) the#2:8 Moshiach Adon HaKavod.#2:8 Ps 24:7
9But even as it has been written, Things which no eye has seen and LO SHAMU (they had not heard) nor did it come up into the heart of Bnei Adam, the things G-d prepared for the ones who have ahavah for him.#2:9 Isa 64:4 [3]; TARGUM HASHIVIM; Isa 52:15
10But Hashem has made the hitgalut haSod (the revelation of the mystery) to us of these things through the Ruach Hakodesh; for the Ruach Hakodesh searches all things, even the deep things of G-d.
11For who of Bnei Adam has da'as of the things of Bnei Adam except the ruach of a man in him? So also the things of G-d no one has known except the Ruach Hashem.#2:11 Jer 17:9; Prov 20:27
12Now we have not received the ruach of the Olam Hazeh but the Ruach Hakodesh from Hashem, that we may have da'as of the things having been freely given to us by Hashem,
13Which things also we speak, not in devarim (words) taught by chochmah haBnei Adam, but in devarim taught by the Ruach Hakodesh, making midrash#2:13 exposition, interpretation of the things of the Ruach Hakodesh#2:13 1C 2:12 by means of the words of the Ruach Hakodesh.
14But a natural person does not receive the things of the Ruach Hakodesh of Hashem, for they are narrishkait (foolishness)#2:14 1C 1:21-24 to him, and he is not able to have personal saving da'as of them, because they are discerned in the Ruach Hakodesh.
15Now the man of the Ruach Hakodesh discerns all things, but, by no one is he discerned.
16For, “Who has known the mind of Hashem so as to instruct Him?”#2:16 Isa 40:13 TARGUM HASHIVIM But we have the mind of Moshiach.
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