Daily Devotional Thursday 2nd May 2024
by William Moody
1 Corinthians 2
Proclaiming Christ Crucified
2:1 And I, when I came to you, brothers,1 did not come proclaiming to you the testimony2 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 men3 but in the power of God.
Wisdom from the Spirit
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.4
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.
Footnotes
[1] 2:1
Or brothers and sisters
[2] 2:1Some manuscripts mystery (or secret)
[3] 2:5The Greek word anthropoi can refer to both men and women
[4] 2:13Or interpreting spiritual truths in spiritual language, or comparing spiritual things with spiritual (ESV)
Paul is not afraid to share of his weakness in order for people to see the power of God’s Spirit that has been working in and through him (v1-5).
Remember that Paul is seeking to heal divisions and one of the best ways in achieving this is for people to be humble. Humility comes as people realise anything they have grasped in regards Christ and the Gospel is not down to them or their cleverness, but down to the work of God’s Spirit (v6-13).
The final verses of the chapter (v14-16) are very important and make it clear that grasping the Gospel message is totally down to the work of the Holy Spirit. This should create great humility and in our work of sharing the Gospel with others, create a total dependence of God’s Spirit to change people.
This is why in the work of the gospel one of the most important things we can do in order to see people saved is to pray, pray, pray for God’s Spirit to work in them. Only God’s Spirit can transform blind and dead sinners.
copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.