1 Corinthians 2
2
1And that’s how it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I didn’t use fancy words or human wisdom to preach the truth to you about God’s love. 2My goal while I was with you was to talk about only one thing: Jesus Christ and his death on the cross. 3When I came to you, I was weak and afraid and shaking 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 and not on human wisdom.
God’s Wisdom Through the Holy Spirit
6However, when we speak to those who are mature in the faith, we do share our wisdom. But it’s not the wisdom of this world or its rulers, who are fading away. 7No, we share God’s wisdom, which is a mystery that has been hidden until now. But before time began, God planned that this wisdom would bring us heavenly glory. 8None of the rulers of this world understood God’s wisdom. If they had, they wouldn’t 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 imagined”
the things God has prepared for those who love him.
10But God has shown these things to us through his Spirit.
The Spirit understands all things, even the deep things of God. 11Who can know the thoughts of another person? Only that person’s own spirit. In the same way, only the Spirit of God knows God’s thoughts. 12What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we can understand what God has freely given us. 13That’s what we speak about, and we don’t use words that we’ve learned from human wisdom. We use words that the Holy Spirit has taught us, and we use them to explain spiritual truths. 14The person who doesn’t have the Spirit doesn’t accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. Those things seem foolish to them, and they can’t understand them, because they can’t be understood without the Spirit’s help. 15But the person who does have the Spirit can make judgments about everything, though no human being can judge them. It is written,
16“Who can ever know the Lord’s mind?
Can anyone teach him anything?”
But we have the mind of Christ.
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Radiate™ New Testament
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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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GOD'S WORD® Translation ©1995, 2003, 2013, 2014, 2019, 2020 by God's Word to the Nations Mission Society. All rights reserved.