New Testament
1 Corinthians 2
Overview
Paul recalls how he first came to Corinth: not with "lofty speech or wisdom" but resolved "to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified" (2:2), arriving "in weakness and in fear and much trembling" (2:3). His preaching was deliberately plain so that their faith would rest "not in the wisdom of men but in the power of God" (2:5). Yet Paul insists this is not anti-wisdom: he does impart wisdom "among the mature," a "secret and hidden wisdom of God" decreed before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age understood, "for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory" (2:8). This wisdom is known only by revelation: "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard... God has revealed to us through the Spirit" (2:9-10). Paul then unfolds the Spirit's role — the Spirit searches the depths of God and alone communicates the things freely given by God. The "natural person" cannot receive these things, for they are spiritually discerned (2:14), but the "spiritual person" judges all things. The chapter ends with a stunning claim: "we have the mind of Christ" (2:16).
1When I came to you, brothers, I didn’t come with excellence of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.
2For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
3I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling.
4My speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
5that your faith wouldn’t stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
6We speak wisdom, however, among those who are full grown, yet a wisdom not of this world nor of the rulers of this world who are coming to nothing.
7But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom that has been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds for our glory,
8which none of the rulers of this world has known. For had they known it, they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory.
9But as it is written, “Things which an eye didn’t see, and an ear didn’t hear, which didn’t enter into the heart of man, these God has prepared for those who love him.”
10But to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
11For who among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God except God’s Spirit.
12But we received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that were freely given to us by God.
13We also speak these things, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things.
14Now the natural man doesn’t receive the things of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to him; and he can’t know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
15But he who is spiritual discerns all things, and he himself is to be judged by no one.
16“For who has known the mind of the Lord that he should instruct him?” But we have Christ’s mind.