1 Corinthians 2
About 1 CorinthiansWritten by AI
First Corinthians is a letter from Paul to a church he planted in Corinth, a busy, wealthy and diverse port city in Greece. Paul wrote it from Ephesus, around AD 54 or 55, and few doubt that it is his. It answers bad news he had heard and questions the church sent him in a letter of their own.
The church was gifted but divided. Members lined up behind favorite leaders, took each other to court, argued over sex, marriage and food offered to idols, and turned worship and the Lord's Supper into occasions for showing off. Paul takes the issues one at a time, often starting with "Now about."
Watch how every answer comes back to the cross and to love. Chapter 13 is the heart of the letter, and chapter 15, on the resurrection, is its great climax: “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.”
Before you read 1 Corinthians 2Written by AI
Paul reminds them he came to Corinth without polished speeches, resolved to know nothing among them except Jesus Christ crucified. Their faith rests on God's power, not human wisdom. There is a true wisdom, he says, but it is revealed by the Spirit to those who have the Spirit.
Paul’s Message by the Spirit’s Power
When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith would not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.
Spiritual Wisdom
Among the mature, however, we speak a message of wisdom—but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of the mysterious and hidden wisdom of God, which He destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it. For if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Rather, as it is written:
“No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no heart has imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love Him.”
But God has revealed it to us by the Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of man except his own spirit within him? So too, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. And this is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.
The natural man does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is not subject to anyone’s judgment. “For who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.