1 Corinthians 2
2
1And this was the way it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I didn’t come with fancy words or human wisdom. I preached to you the truth about God’s love. 2My goal while I was with you was to talk about only one thing. And that was Jesus Christ and his death on the cross. 3When I came to you, I was weak and very afraid and trembling all over. 4I didn’t preach my message with clever and compelling words. Instead, my preaching showed the Holy Spirit’s power. 5This was so that your faith would be based on God’s power. Your faith would not be based on human wisdom.
God’s Wisdom Through the Holy Spirit
6The words we speak to those who have grown in the faith are wise. Our words are different from the wisdom of this world. Our words are different from those of the rulers of this world. These rulers are becoming less and less powerful. 7No, we announce God’s wisdom. His wisdom is a mystery that has been hidden. But before time began, God planned that his wisdom would bring us heavenly glory. 8None of the rulers of this world understood God’s wisdom. If they had, they would not have nailed the Lord of glory to the cross. 9It is written that
“no eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
and no human mind has known.” (Isaiah 64:4)
God has prepared these things for those who love him.
10God has shown these things to us through his Spirit.
The Spirit understands all things. He understands even the deep things of God. 11Who can know the thoughts of another person? Only a person’s own spirit can know them. In the same way, only the Spirit of God knows God’s thoughts. 12What we have received is not the spirit of the world. We have received the Spirit who is from God. The Spirit helps us understand what God has freely given us. 13That is what we speak about. We don’t use words taught to us by people. We use words taught to us by the Holy Spirit. We use the words taught by the Spirit to explain spiritual truths. 14The person without the Spirit doesn’t accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. These things are foolish to them. They can’t understand them. In fact, such things can’t be understood without the Spirit’s help. 15The person who has the Spirit can judge all things. But no human being can judge those who have the Spirit. It is written,
16“Who can ever know what is in the Lord’s mind?
Can anyone ever teach him?” (Isaiah 40:13)
But we have the mind of Christ.
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1 Corinthians 2: NIrV
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Holy Bible, New International Reader’s Version®, NIrV®
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Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
1 Corinthians 2
2
1Brothers and sisters, when I came to you, I didn’t speak about God’s mystery #2:1 Some manuscripts and translations read “testimony.” as if it were some kind of brilliant message or wisdom. 2While I was with you, I decided to deal with only one subject—Jesus Christ, who was crucified. 3When I came to you, I was weak. I was afraid and very nervous. 4I didn’t speak my message with persuasive intellectual arguments. I spoke my message with a show of spiritual power 5so that your faith would not be based on human wisdom but on God’s power.
6However, we do use wisdom to speak to those who are mature. It is a wisdom that doesn’t belong to this world or to the rulers of this world who are in power today and gone tomorrow. 7We speak about the mystery of God’s wisdom. It is a wisdom that has been hidden, which God had planned for our glory before the world began. 8Not one of the rulers of this world has known it. If they had, they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory. 9But as Scripture says:
“No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
and no mind has imagined
the things that God has prepared
for those who love him.”
10God has revealed those things to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches everything, especially the deep things of God. 11After all, who knows everything about a person except that person’s own spirit? In the same way, no one has known everything about God except God’s Spirit. 12Now, we didn’t receive the spirit that belongs to the world. Instead, we received the Spirit who comes from God so that we could know the things which God has freely given us. 13We don’t speak about these things using teachings that are based on intellectual arguments like people do. Instead, we use the Spirit’s teachings. We explain spiritual things to those who have the Spirit.#2:13 Or “We explain spiritual things in spiritual words.”
14A person who isn’t spiritual doesn’t accept the teachings of God’s Spirit. He thinks they’re nonsense. He can’t understand them because a person must be spiritual to evaluate them. 15Spiritual people evaluate everything but are subject to no one’s evaluation.
16“Who has known the mind of the Lord
so that he can teach him?”
However, we have the mind of Christ.
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