Life Project Blog

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. No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God 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. However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,
    what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
    the things God has prepared for those who love him—

these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.

1 Corinthians 2:6-10

Paul’s discussion continues in a very interesting way here as he moves from the simple message he preached to something much deeper. Recall that he indicated that his message in Corinth had been simplicity itself, but here he says that when speaking to the mature in Christ, but this deeper message has nothing to do with the wisdom of this world, for the wise according to the ways of this world simply cannot comprehend the wisdom that comes from God.

He refers to this “wisdom” as a mystery in verse 7: we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. He goes on to say that: None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. (v. 8)

Isn’t that an interesting little tidbit? What’s this “mystery”?

Paul quotes Isaiah 64:4 and tells his readers that the mystery is something that God has revealed by His Spirit, and that no one can conceive of it…

So, what is the mystery?!!

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.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.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.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. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,for,

“Who has known the mind of the Lord
    so as to instruct him?”

But we have the mind of Christ.

1 Corinthians 2:11-16

Paul continues his discussion of the wisdom of God with a compelling comparison: No one knows the thoughts of another person, except that person’s own spirit within them, and no one knows God’s thoughts except His own Spirit. In the 21^st century we might be inclined to substitute the word “mind” for the word “spirit”, but I would think Paul’s statement is clear enough; so how can we know the Spirit or mind of God?

You might suspect that Paul is building an argument here, and if you were thinking along those lines, you would be quite correct, for that is exactly what he is doing. We’ve seen point one, and now he moves to the second step: We have, in fact, received the Spirit of God within us in the Person of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Consequently, we actually can understand His gift to us, which appears to the world around us to be nothing more than foolishness. When Paul speaks to the mature, to those who can comprehend the mystery of God, he does so not in human reasoning or with merely human understanding, but under the direction of the Spirit.

Even the most brilliant of people cannot understand the mystery of God, for it takes a great deal more than human understanding to see it; it takes the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and we might add, so does saying what we’re saying right now. Yet for someone who has the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, these truths are discernable because… (I hope you are sitting down)… we have the mind of Christ.

During the entire period of my training in Seminary, I was taught that we have the mind of Christ in the Scriptures, for they contain the entire written record of God’s revelation of Himself to humanity. To this day, I believe that what I learned was true. Yet over the decades since then, I have also come to believe that what I was taught, though true, was incomplete – certainly, it is a bit at odds with Paul’s statement in our text. To make this a little more interesting, I was also taught that there are at least 2 types of divine revelation: general revelation (the Scriptures) and special revelation which comes directly from God. Some of the old school professors always added “through the Scriptures” at the end of that statement.

I have enough experience, as do many of you dear readers, to know that God frequently reveals things to us through the Scriptures− no one would argue that point. Yet there are other times when the Scriptures aren’t involved, when understanding might come to us, perhaps in times of prayer or meditation for instance; there are many possibilities here. Having said this, I’ve also known people who claimed that God had revealed something to them that sounded an awful lot like the sort of things that came from a source other than God. I recall one young lady who told me that God revealed to her that the perfect expression of His love was found in participating in orgies, and somehow that just didn’t quite ring true to me. One time I spoke to a man who said that God revealed to him that his Spirit was present whenever the man was under the influence of a certain illegal intoxicating substance, and that also didn’t quite ring true.

There is a lesson here: Yes, we have the mind of Christ in the Person of the Holy Spirit, but we must be careful that His leading is not in contradiction to His Word, for should that be the case, it is much more likely that the spirit we are listening to is a great deal less than Holy.

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.For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.

1 Corinthians 2:1-5

In this interesting paragraph, Paul moves his discussion of wisdom away from the Corinthian congregation, and onto himself as an example to illustrate his point about division and fragmentation. If we just take it at face value, he makes some great observations that we should take to heart. Yet his real point requires that we recall who is writing this.

Paul has called himself a Jew among Jews, a Pharisee with the very best education. In earthly terms, Paul is entitled to boast a bit, because he can back it up; he has a lot to boast about. As I mentioned earlier, Paul was the smartest and best educated man in most any room he entered, but he wasn’t running around Corinth showing it off. In modern terms, there wasn’t any swagger about him.

In spite of his accomplishments, in spite of his position as an Apostle, Paul was humble.

Yet it wasn’t always that way. Recall that as a Pharisee, he not only participated in Stephen’s murder, but he took persecution on a road trip. Yet on that famous journey of terror, he met Jesus Christ face-to-face and everything changed for him.

Apparently, the change Paul experienced in attitude had not yet taken hold in Corinth. If you or I were members of the Corinthian church and we were hearing his letter read for the first time, might we not ask ourselves whether or not such a change had taken hold of us?

As 21^st century Christians, might we not ask ourselves if we have undergone such a change today?

Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

1 Corinthians 1:20-25

Do I detect the slightest little trace of sarcasm in these words – or would you prefer I call it irony instead? Whatever we call it, Paul is boldly making the case that social and cultural distinctions were playing a big role in the divisiveness that was taking place in the congregation in Corinth. He clearly isn’t serious when he calls the simple gospel message foolishness, but in our time as well as in Paul’s the learned in society make it out to be foolish. I think it’s particularly telling in verse 22 that Jews demand signs, while Greeks look for wisdom “but we preach Christ crucified”.

Think of all of the times in the gospels when Jesus performed miracle after miracle, and then someone would say, “show us a sign”. Think of how often someone might say that the gospel just doesn’t make scientific sense. What did Jesus say about such things?

He said “let he who has ears to hear, hear, and let he who has eyes to see, see.” When our great wisdom, our lofty positions, our fantastic wealth become central to our lives, we might not even be able to see the noses on our faces. God is not limited by human understanding, nor is He dazzled by human society or material wealth.

Those among our church communities who have great learning, or great positions or vast wealth must resist the temptation to believe that they are somehow better or more favored or superior to those less fortunate, for in God’s eye, we all are His “little ones” and none is greater than the rest. For any of us to do less will eventually bring divisiveness to the church, and our Heavenly Father tends to find division among His little ones to be less than amusing.

God has called us to repentance and grace. He has called both Jew and Gentile, black and white, rich and poor, great and small, for to God all are the same.

I enjoy reading Mark Twain, the 19^th century American novelist, humorist and social commentator. Something he wrote keeps banging around in my head, so since I can’t seem to chase it away, I’ll share it. Mr. Twain once wrote that all government officials, high and low, everywhere in the world should be required to always perform their duties completely naked, for without their fancy outfits and impressive uniforms, oppression would disappear from the earth. That’s how God sees all of us, and if we dare to think of ourselves the same way that God does, all of our wisdom and earthly importance seems rather silly… or so it seems to me.

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”

1 Corinthians 1:26-31

Paul sums up his point in these verses. Let’s not forget that he is actually talking about division in the church, and he’s making the general point that training, education power and social position amount to little or nothing in God’s eyes and shouldn’t be all that important in the church; certainly, they should never be allowed to bring about the fragmentation of the Body of Christ.

It should be recognized here that from an earthly point of view, Paul’s teaching is nothing if not counter-intuitive for us. Of course, that is precisely Paul’s point.: God’s ways are not our ways.

It is for us to remember that where we are weak, God is strong. Things may seem impossible to us, but with God, all things are possible.  Does this all sound too simple, foolish… even childish? Maybe it is. Yet didn’t Jesus say that unless we become like little children we couldn’t enter the Kingdom of Heaven?