1 Corinthians 2
1 And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.
2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
Superior speech refers to eloquence and confidence and clear articulation.
Superior wisdom refers to giving useful information and using logic to tie everything together.
Paul tried superior speech and wisdom just before he came to Corinth and it didn’t work. He learnt from that and changed his method.
Paul was learning as he went and was sensitive to what the Holy Spirit was teaching him.
Paul told the Corinthians only about salvation from the penalty of sin because that was all that they could understand at this point. We too, when we minister to people, should be cognizant of what they can accept and only tell them that. We shouldn’t tell everyone everything we know on a particular topic. It would be like throwing pearls before swine.
3 I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling,
4 and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
5 so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.
Paul explains the measures he took to ensure that the faith of the Corinthians would not rest in the messengers but on God. And yet they were focusing on the messengers. Sometimes, even if you tell people to avoid a certain trap they just don’t get it and still fall into it.
Paul didn’t try to persuade them to believe. He didn’t study how they may be persuaded and then try to persuade them in that way. He used the power of the Holy Spirit to show them that his message was from God.
Neither did Paul want to show them how smart and insightful he was.
Paul was concerned about saying too much and trying to persuade the Corinthians to believe things. He wanted them to get truth from God. He wanted them to see God working in his own life and believe that God would do the same in their life too.
When we minister to others, we too should not minister in a way that results in their faith resting in our wisdom but in the power of God.
What does Paul mean when he says that their "faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God?"
Ask yourself why you believe what you believe? Is it because some pastor or theologian told you to believe it, and gave you some Scripture to back his statement? If so, then your faith is resting on the wisdom of men.
When you believe something because you have seen it yourself in God’s word and you are thoroughly convinced that God has the power to ensure that His word is true then you believe in that thing because of the power of God. That is, your faith is resting on the power of God.
6 Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away;
7 but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden {wisdom} which God predestined before the ages to our glory;
8 {the wisdom} which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory;
9 but just as it is written, "THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND {which} HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM."
God’s truth and wisdom doesn’t come through natural abilities like intelligence and personality and physical prowess.
People in power in the government or the church are usually those with the highest natural abilities like intelligence and personality and physical prowess.
Even the leaders of the Jews, who had a sharp mind and excellent knowledge of Scripture, missed God’s truth and wisdom. The ability to know Scripture is a natural ability and is not the same as having experiential and intimate knowledge of God.
God’s wisdom is a mystery to most people, and especially to unbelievers and carnal believers. It concerns what God has prepared for those who love Him. God gives these things freely to those who love Him.
This wisdom is for the spiritually mature i.e. for those who love God.
People who don’t understand this wisdom end up being against God.
Notice the subtle association that Paul makes between those who are mature and those who love God. In verse 6, he talks about the wisdom spoken to those who are mature, and then in verse 9 he mentions that God has prepared something special for those who love Him. The connection is that those who are mature are those who love Him.
Spiritually immature people are only interested in how much God loves them, whereas spiritually mature people are those who are also interested in how they can love God.
There is much that can be said about how to determine whether you love God, and how to determine the extent to which you love God, and about what God has prepared for those who love Him, but I’ll have to put that in another place.
10 For to us God revealed {them} through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.
11 For who among men knows the {thoughts} of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the {thoughts} of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.
12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God,
13 which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual {thoughts} with spiritual {words.}
This wisdom is revealed to the spiritually mature through the Holy Spirit.
Just as a man’s spirit knows the man’s thoughts so also God’s Spirit knows God’s thoughts.
Since God’s Spirit dwells in us, He reveals to us what God has freely given and has prepared for those who love Him. And we then communicate that to others. This is what fellowship is all about.
14 But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.
A natural man is a man who depends on natural abilities, like intelligence, to acquire and understand truth. In Mt 11:25 we see that God hides His truth from the natural man.
Paul mentions that the rules of this age (i.e. those who are strong in natural abilities like intelligence, personality, etc.) did not understand what God was doing through their natural abilities and ended up crucifying Jesus. This was his proof that you can’t understand God using natural abilities.
To accept truth from God you have to be spiritual. That is, you have to give great importance to the care and well-being of your spirit – more than what you give to the care and well-being of your flesh.
Some people think that ‘natural man’ refers to unbelievers. But that is not so. This is because, here the contrast is between spiritual men and natural men, and then immediately after this passage (i.e. in 1 Cor 3:1) Paul says that he couldn’t speak to the Corinthians as spiritual men but as to men of the flesh i.e. carnal Christians.
15 But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one.
A spiritual person evaluates everything for their spiritual merit. That is, he will try to determine whether something will benefit him spiritually or not. For example, he will ponder on whether the TV shows he watches or the books he reads or the places he visits or the friends he associates with will pull him towards God or draw him away from God.
A spiritual person is not concerned about what some other man things of him. He doesn’t do things just because everyone else is doing it. He doesn’t do things because he wants to look good in the eyes of other people.
16 For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ.
To evaluate spiritual things (including the spiritual condition of any man, like Paul or Cephas or Apollos) you have to have the mind of Christ. That is, you have to be a spiritual person.
In the latter part of this chapter, Paul was trying to tell the Corinthians that they shouldn’t evaluate the messengers of God because they were not spiritual enough to do so accurately.
Specifically, in the latter half of 1 Cor 2 Paul is saying that you can’t understand God’s word and God’s mind by using your natural abilities. Instead, you need to depend on the Holy Spirit, who is the only one who knows the mind of God. Further, you need to be a spiritual person to evaluate spiritual things. The Corinthians were carnal and were therefore unfit to make spiritual appraisals. Specifically, they were in no position to evaluate spiritual leaders like Paul and Apollos and others.
|