Proclaiming Christ Crucified
2 Brothers, when I came to you, I did not come with superiority of speech or wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God. 2 For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 3 I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. 4 My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
The Revelation by God’s Spirit
6 Yet we speak wisdom among those who are mature, although not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age knew it. For had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But as it is written,
“Eye has not seen,
nor ear heard,
nor has it entered into the heart of man
the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
10 But God has revealed them to us by His Spirit.
For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knows the things of a man, except the spirit of man which is in him? Likewise, no one knows the things of God, except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, so that we might know the things that are freely given to us by God. 13 These things also we proclaim, not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he who is spiritual judges all things. Yet he himself is not judged by anyone. 16 For
“who has known the mind of the Lord
that he may instruct Him?”
But we have the mind of Christ.
Footnotes
- 1 Corinthians 2:9
- 1 Corinthians 2:16
