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feet on firm spiritual ground, but it’s not popular wisdom, the fashionable wisdom of high-priced experts that will be out-of-date in a year or so.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
1And I, having come unto you, brethren, came — not in superiority of discourse or wisdom — declaring to you the testimony of God,
2for I decided not to know any thing among you, except Jesus Christ, and him crucified;
3and I, in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling, was with you;
4and my word and my preaching was not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power —
5that your faith may not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
6And wisdom we speak among the perfect, and wisdom not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age — of those becoming useless,
7but we speak the hidden wisdom of God in a secret, that God foreordained before the ages to our glory,
8which no one of the rulers of this age did know, for if they had known, the Lord of the glory they would not have crucified;
9but, according as it hath been written, ‘What eye did not see, and ear did not hear, and upon the heart of man came not up, what God did prepare for those loving Him — ’
10but to us did God reveal [them] through His Spirit, for the Spirit all things doth search, even the depths of God,
11for who of men hath known the things of the man, except the spirit of the man that [is] in him? so also the things of God no one hath known, except the Spirit of God.
12And we the spirit of the world did not receive, but the Spirit that [is] of God, that we may know the things conferred by God on us,
13which things also we speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Holy Spirit, with spiritual things spiritual things comparing,
14and the natural man doth not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for to him they are foolishness, and he is not able to know [them], because spiritually they are discerned;
15and he who is spiritual, doth discern indeed all things, and he himself is by no one discerned;
16for who did know the mind of the Lord that he shall instruct Him? and we — we have the mind of Christ.
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