And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.[a] 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written:
6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written:
“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”[b]—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”[b]—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—
10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.[c] 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. 15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for,
But we have the mind of Christ.
After Paul's discourse on God's power through weakness last week, he is now addressing the church about the source and the power of true wisdom. If worldly forces and influences are what create most of the problems for those following God (as it was in the ancient near east of the Old Testament and the 1st century New Testament era), then Paul is right in feeling called to preach the truth about where wisdom comes from and how it is attained. For Paul it is a serious difference; it is the difference between a life built on truth verses a life that is built on lies. It is a place where Paul pits the person following the philosopher of the modern age against the one who is embodied by the Holy Spirit and open to the wisdom the Spirit would impart. Personal piety and ritual have less to do with our faithfulness and obedience for Paul, than the place from which we derive our wisdom.
Now some of what comes in Paul's corrective teaching to the church in Corinth may be the pendulum swung at the complete opposite of where the Corinthians had been. I am inclined to listen to that juxtaposition, but I listen to it with a Wesleyan bent. Remember our Wesleyan Quadrilateral? Scripture is primary, but reason, experience and tradition also play vital roles. I believe that God gave us reason to be used...but not to be elevated to the point of being equal to the wisdom that comes from a life lived deeply entrenched in the presence of God.
So here are the questions that resonate from me as I ramble: where have I/you/we sought knowledge or wisdom simply for the sake of having it (whether that was merely to know more than those around us or to satisfy some deep need to know more than we knew before for mere knowledge sake)? Have you, like I have, sometimes sought counsel or wisdom from somewhere worldly rather than turning to God for a fresh outpouring of wisdom from the Holy Spirit? Have you, again like I have, had times where you have finally gotten fed up with the world's view and gone to God to have your perspective refreshed and grown in your Godly wisdom and knowledge?
Looking forward to Sunday, please feel free to share your comments below.
Now some of what comes in Paul's corrective teaching to the church in Corinth may be the pendulum swung at the complete opposite of where the Corinthians had been. I am inclined to listen to that juxtaposition, but I listen to it with a Wesleyan bent. Remember our Wesleyan Quadrilateral? Scripture is primary, but reason, experience and tradition also play vital roles. I believe that God gave us reason to be used...but not to be elevated to the point of being equal to the wisdom that comes from a life lived deeply entrenched in the presence of God.
So here are the questions that resonate from me as I ramble: where have I/you/we sought knowledge or wisdom simply for the sake of having it (whether that was merely to know more than those around us or to satisfy some deep need to know more than we knew before for mere knowledge sake)? Have you, like I have, sometimes sought counsel or wisdom from somewhere worldly rather than turning to God for a fresh outpouring of wisdom from the Holy Spirit? Have you, again like I have, had times where you have finally gotten fed up with the world's view and gone to God to have your perspective refreshed and grown in your Godly wisdom and knowledge?
Looking forward to Sunday, please feel free to share your comments below.
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