The Word Made Fresh
1When I came to you, I didn’t come proclaiming divine mysteries in lofty words of wisdom. 2I made a conscious decision to know nothing among you but Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3I came to you weak, and fearfully trembling. 4What I proclaimed was not with credible words of wisdom, but was a demonstration of the power of the Spirit 5so that your faith would be based, not on human wisdom, but only on the power of God.
6But, among those who are mature in faith, we do speak with wisdom, though not the wisdom of this generation or its rulers, for they will all pass away. 7Rather, we speak with the wisdom of God which has been hidden, but was decreed ages ago for us. 8None of the leaders of our time understood this. If they had they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9But, as it is written “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart imagined, what God has prepared is for those who love him,” 10this is what God has shown us through the Spirit, which searches all things, even the depths of God. 11For can anyone know what is truly human except for the inner spirit of humanity? Or can anyone understand what really belongs to God except by God’s Spirit? 12But now we have been given not the spirit of the world, but rather the Spirit of God, so that we can understand what God has given us. 13And we tell these things with words given to us by the Spirit, not taught by human wisdom. So, we interpret the things of the Spirit for those who are spiritual, 14for those who are not spiritual cannot receive the gifts of the Spirit of God. Such things are foolishness to them, and they can’t understand things that can only be understood spiritually. 15Those who are spiritual understand this and can’t be subjected to anyone else’s judgment. 16“For who has known God’s mind and is able to teach him?”
But we have the mind of Christ.
Commentary
1-5: The account of Paul’s visit to Corinth (Acts 18) is unremarkable. No miracles of healing are recorded, and although some converts were made, there is no claim of a large number even though Paul was there for nearly two years. Paul says here that he claimed no insights into “the mystery of God,” but only preached Christ crucified and risen. We can’t be sure what he means by that phrase, but we know that there were any number of mystery cults extant, and roaming teachers pretending to have secret knowledge.
6-13: And yet he does claim to have God’s wisdom, “secret and hidden,” by which he means it can be perceived only by faith, not by any form of human knowledge. The quote in verse 9 is loosely based on Isaiah 64:4. He contrasts human knowledge with spiritual knowledge. Human knowledge cannot fathom the things of God.
14-16: The spiritual gifts that God dispenses to believers cannot be discerned by those who rely on human wisdom. Only those who have spiritual wisdom can perceive the things of God. He loosely quotes Isaiah 40:13: we cannot know the mind of God, but we can have the mind of Christ which teaches us spiritual wisdom.
Takeaway
Wisdom is knowledge drawn from faith.