1 Corinthians 2 - Foolish Wisdom
God's Word will never be appealing to the world, but it contains wisdom and promises far beyond anything you can imagine.
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1 Corinthians 2 (ESV)
1 And I, when I came to you, brothers,
did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God
with lofty speech
or wisdom.
2 For I decided to know nothing among you
except Jesus Christ
and him crucified.
3 And I was with you
in weakness
and in fear and much trembling,
4 and my speech and my message
were not in plausible words of wisdom,
but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
5 so that your faith
might not rest in the wisdom of men
but in the power of God.
6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom,
although it is not a wisdom
of this age
or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away.
7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God,
which God decreed before the ages for our glory.
8 None of the rulers of this age understood this,
for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
9 But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—
10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit.
For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him?
So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
→ 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world,
but the Spirit who is from God,
that we might understand the things freely given us by God.
13 And we impart this in words
not taught by human wisdom
but taught by the Spirit,
interpreting spiritual truths
to those who are spiritual.
14 The natural person
does not accept
the things of the Spirit of God,
for they are folly to him,
and
he is not able to understand them
because they are spiritually discerned.
15 The spiritual person
judges all things,
but is himself to be judged by no one.
16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?”
But we have the mind of Christ.
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1 Corinthians 1 Summary
True Christian preaching is not impressive... at least from the world's perspective.
As Paul preached the gospel throughout the Roman empire, he did not use lofty speech or wisdom (v2). Rather he came in weakness and trembling (v3).
Those who pursue the wisdom of this age are looking for a message that validates them in their sin and reinforces them in their pursuit of the things of this world, things which are doomed to pass away (v6).
The type of preaching Paul brought and commanded in the church points us far beyond the immediate gratification the world wants. God's Word points us to 'what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined,' what God has prepared for those who love him (v9, Isaiah 65:4).
Unfortunately, most people have no interest in things that they can't have right now. These things of God that true Christian preaching conveys are folly, because those who have not been regenerated (given a new heart by the Holy Spirit) are not able to understand that which is being preached (v14).
Dig Deeper
Wouldn't it be awesome to hit baseballs as well as Hank Aaron, drain baskets like Michael Jordan or decorate like Joanna Gaines? People of that caliber have two things in common:
1) They were gifted with extraordinary talent;
2) They worked extremely hard to develop that raw talent.
It's not very likely that you will excel at professional sports or have your own home decorating empire, but you do have an extraordinary talent. The end of v16 makes one of the most awesome promises of scripture that few people truly appreciate:
We have the mind of Christ.
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