1 Corinthians 2
2
Paul only said the words that the Holy Spirit gave him
1My Christian friends, remember when I first came to you and told you God’s message. I didn’t use smart words, like a man that thinks he knows everything. 2No. I only told you about Jesus Christ, and that he died on the cross for us. I didn’t talk about other things. 3I felt weak and frightened while I was with you. I was so frightened I was shaking.#Acts 18:9 4I didn’t think up smart ideas or use smart words to get you to believe my message. No. I trusted God’s spirit to use his power to show everyone that my message is true. 5I did that so that you will not trust in a smart person, but you will trust in the power of God.
6You see, whenever I am with people that trust in Jesus, and are strong for him, that’s when I can talk about things that are wise and good. I don’t mean smart ideas that people in this world think up, like how the bosses in this world plan things. Those bosses will finish up anyway. 7No, the wise and good things that we talk about are the things that belong to God. He planned those things a long time ago, before he made the world, but he didn’t tell anybody about them until now. 8None of the bosses in this world understood those things. So they killed Jesus. They nailed our very great and good leader to a cross. 9But, you know, God says this in his book,
“God got good things ready for the people that love him.
Those things are better than anything anybody else can ever think up.
Nobody ever saw or heard anything as good as the things that God got ready for us.”#Isaiah 64:4
10But God’s spirit shows these things to us. His spirit understands everything, even those things that God has not yet told anybody. 11You see, nobody knows what another person is thinking. Only that person’s own spirit knows, nobody else. Well, it is like that with God too. Only God’s spirit knows what God is thinking. 12And remember this, God didn’t get us to think the way the people of this world think. No. God gave us his spirit, and his spirit helps us, so we can understand all the good things God gave us. 13Those are the things that we tell you about. We don’t use words that smart people taught us, but we use the words that God’s spirit teaches us. And we tell God’s message to people that have God’s spirit living inside them, and we help them understand it.
14You see, if God’s spirit is not living inside people, they can’t believe any message from God. They can’t understand what God wants to teach them. They think it is all stupid. You see, the Holy Spirit is the only one that can help people understand the things of God. 15People that have God’s spirit can think about all these things and understand them. But people that haven’t got God’s spirit can never understand the people that have got his spirit. 16God says this in his book,
“Nobody can know what God is thinking.
Nobody can try to tell him the right way to think.”#Isaiah 40:13
But the Holy Spirit is in us, so we can think the same way that Jesus Christ thinks.
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© 2021, Wycliffe Bible Translators, Inc. All rights reserved.
1 Corinthians 2
2
Paul’s Proclamation
1When I came to you, brothers, announcing the testimony # Other mss read mystery of God to you, I did not come with brilliance # 1Tm 2:2 of speech # Col 4:6 or wisdom. 2For I didn’t think it was a good idea to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. # 1Co 1:23-24; Gl 6:14 3I came to you in weakness, # 2Co 11:30 in fear, # Rv 11:11 and in much trembling. # Php 2:12 4My speech # Mt 12:37 and my proclamation were not with persuasive # Php 1:25 words of wisdom # Other mss read human wisdom but with a powerful demonstration by the Spirit, 5so that your faith might not be based on men’s wisdom but on God’s power. # Mk 5:30; Lk 1:35; 6:19; Ac 19:11; 2Co 13:4; 2Tm 1:7; Rv 11:17
Spiritual Wisdom
6However, we do speak a wisdom among the mature, # Mt 5:48 but not a wisdom of this age, or of the rulers # Lk 12:58 of this age, who are coming to nothing. # Heb 2:14 7On the contrary, we speak God’s hidden wisdom in a mystery, a wisdom God predestined # Eph 1:5 before the ages for our glory. # Lk 24:26; 1Pt 5:1,4 8None of the rulers of this age knew this wisdom, for if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. # Ps 24:7 9But as it is written:
What eye did not see and ear did not hear,
and what never entered the human mind —
God prepared this for those who love Him. # Is 52:15; 64:4; Lk 10:27; 1Jn 4:20 # Is 52:15; 64:4
10Now God has revealed these things to us by the Spirit, for the Spirit searches everything, # Ps 17:3; Jn 14:26 even the depths of God. # Rm 8:39; 11:33; Eph 3:18 11For who among men knows the thoughts # Or things of a man except the spirit # Rm 1:9 of the man that is in him? In the same way, no one knows # 1Jn 4:8 the thoughts # Or things of God except the Spirit of God. 12Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who comes from God, so that we may understand what has been freely given to us by God. 13We also speak these things, not in words # Mt 12:37 taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual things to spiritual people. # Or things with spiritual words 14But the unbeliever # Or unspiritual; lit natural does not welcome what comes from God’s Spirit, because it is foolishness to him; he is not able to understand it since it is evaluated # Or judged, or discerned spiritually. 15The spiritual person, however, can evaluate # Or judge, or discern everything, yet he himself cannot be evaluated # Or judged, or discerned by anyone. 16For
who has known the Lord’s mind,
that he may instruct Him? # Is 40:13 # Is 40:13
But we have the mind of Christ. # Col 2:2
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