1 Corinthians 2
2
Chapter 2
How Paul taught God's message
1Christian friends, I came to tell you God's true message. I did not use clever words when I spoke to you. I did not try to make you think that I was very wise. 2While I was with you, I decided to teach you only about Jesus Christ. I taught you about his death on a cross. I wanted to forget everything else.
3I lived among you as someone who felt weak. I was very afraid. 4When I spoke to you and when I taught you God's message, I did not use clever words. I did not want you to believe me because you thought I was wise. Instead, it was the power of God's Holy Spirit that showed you that my message was true. 5As a result, you now believe because of God's power. You do not believe because of human ideas.
6But we do speak about wise thoughts to those of you who know Christ very well. But those wise thoughts do not belong to this world. They are not the ideas that the rulers of this world think are important. Those rulers will not be powerful for long. 7No, the wise thoughts that we speak about belong to God. He has hidden them from people until now. But before God made the world, he decided to let us know these secrets. He wanted us to enjoy his glory. 8None of the rulers of this world understood God's wise plan. If they had understood, they would not have killed Jesus on a cross. He is the Lord who rules heaven and earth. 9This is written in the Bible:
‘Nobody ever saw or heard anything about this.
Nobody ever thought that it could happen.
But these are the things that God has prepared for his people who love him.’ #2:9 See Isaiah 64:4.
10But God has sent his Spirit to show these secrets to us. God's Spirit looks carefully into everything. He even knows God's secret thoughts. 11Only a person's own spirit can know everything that is in his thoughts. And it is the same with God. Only God's Spirit knows everything that is in God's thoughts. 12We have received God's own Spirit, not a spirit that belongs to this world. As a result, we can understand all the good things that God has given to us. 13Those are the things that we speak about. We do not use clever words to speak about human ideas. Instead, we speak the message that God's Spirit has taught us. In that way, we explain a spiritual message to people who have God's Spirit.
14If someone does not believe in God, they cannot accept the message that comes from God's Spirit. They think that God's message is silly. They cannot even understand those things. Only God's Spirit can explain them to people. 15But we have God's Spirit with us. So we can understand the true value of all things. But other people cannot truly understand us, who belong to God. 16As it says in the Bible:
‘Nobody can know what the Lord God is thinking.
Nobody can tell him what he should do.’ #2:16 See Isaiah 40:13.
But we think about these things in the same way that Christ thinks.
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MissionAssist 2018
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.