1 Corinthians 2
2
The new wisdom
1So I never thought in coming amongst you to be able by my own persuasiveness, logic or rhetoric to make a message of God, a revelation of the mystery of His being, understood by you. It could never have come to you through such human means as that. 2And so I judged that to know nought but Jesus Christ and him crucified was the way, the only way of this Gospel, which is demonstrated divinely by the Spirit and by power, not by persuasive preaching. 3I was as nothing in myself, only conscious of my weakness, and full of deep reverence and fear, 4yes, even of what I had to say, which could not express itself in clever words; 5and so your faith was built not on any man’s personal influence and wisdom, but on divine power and its demonstration. 6Yet it is a wisdom that I speak, a deep and holy wisdom known to the perfect, unknown to the passing world of the flesh, and unknown to the powers that control that world, powers and influences which even now, are breaking up and vanishing. 7This wisdom of God is spoken by me in a mystery. Unknown to the former generations of the world, it was to be our glory, our light, and God’s fore-ordination of it preceded all other things. 8Unknown too to all powers of the mortal state, for they crucified its Lord. Had they known this hidden delectable wisdom, would they have crucified him? 9They knew it not, “for eye,” says the scripture, “hath not seen it, ear hath not heard it, the heart of mankind has not received the things that God makes ready for those that love Him.” (Isa. 44:4.)
Deep things can only be apprehended spiritually
10So it was through the Spirit, through revelation that we learned them. The very depths of God are searched by the Spirit, which also sheds light on all things; and the Spirit alone can know and reveal them, nought else; 11no more than one can tell any man’s thoughts that he thinks in himself [none can tell them save the thinker himself], so none knoweth God’s thoughts, but God Himself, the Spirit. 12And in our hearts and minds there now doth work not that spirit, which is the influence and animal intelligence of the world, but the divine Spirit, and this it is which reveals to us those things that are bestowed on man by God. 13It is that legacy which passes from God to man, those messages and bestowals which man receives from God which I teach you of, and how can I make it known by an utterance invented in the schools of learning, how can I teach it except as the Spirit teaches it, representing spiritual things in a spiritual method, to be spiritually discerned? Only thus can it be taught, for the materially minded man, who thinks through the senses, is totally and utterly ignorant of God’s spiritual messages. They are to him absolute foolishness, and he cannot reach them, for they are only made known to the spiritual character. 14Now the true spiritual man has all experience at his feet to dispose of, to reject or accept according to the dictates of the Spirit, he himself being beyond the reach of the things wherein this judgment operates. 15For it is as spiritual beings, and not carnal, that we possess the mind of Christ. None teacheth us or judgeth us. 16“Who has known the mind of the Lord or being His counsellor hath taught Him?”
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Translated in 1916, published in 1937.
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