Paul’s Message, the Spirit’s Power

¹ When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming 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, in fear, and in much trembling. ⁴ My speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, ⁵ that your faith would not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

Wisdom from the Spirit of God

⁶ We speak wisdom, however, among those who are full grown, yet a wisdom not of this world, nor of the rulers of this world who are coming to nothing. ⁷ But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom that has been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds for our glory, ⁸ which none of the rulers of this world has known. 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 have entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him.” ^a

¹⁰ But to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. ¹¹ For who among men knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man, which is in him? Just the same, no one knows the things of God, except the Spirit of God.

¹² But we received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that were freely given to us by God. ¹³ We also speak these things, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things.

¹⁴ Now the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually discerned. ¹⁵ But he who is spiritual discerns all things, and he himself is judged by no one.

¹⁶ “For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct him?” ^b

But we have Christ’s mind.

^{a Isaiah 64:4
b Isaiah 40:13}

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