1 Corinthians
1 Corinthians takes its name from the believers in Corinth to whom Paul wrote the letter. Paul addresses divisions, sexual immorality, marriage, worship, spiritual gifts, the Lord’s Supper, and questions about the resurrection, helping a troubled church understand what it means to live faithfully as God’s people. Throughout the letter, he calls them away from pride and toward unity, holiness, and love. 1 Corinthians reveals that the gospel of Jesus should shape every part of a believer’s life and that love must remain at the heart of Christian community.
1 Corinthians 2
Paul’s Message by the Spirit’s Power
1 When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.
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 and fear, and with much trembling.
4 My message and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power,
5 so that your faith would not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.
Spiritual Wisdom
(Ephesians 1:15–23)
6 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.
7 No, we speak of the mysterious and hidden wisdom of God, which He 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 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.”
10 But God has revealed it to us by the Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.
11 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.
12 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.
13 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.
14 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.
15 The spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is not subject to anyone’s judgment.
16 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
Footnotes:
2:7 Or we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery
2:9 Isaiah 64:4
2:13 Or to spiritual people
2:16 Isaiah 40:13 (see also LXX)
Berean Standard Bible (BSB) printed 2016, 2020, 2022, 2025 by Bible Hub and Berean.Bible. Produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, unfoldingWord, Bible Aquifer, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee. This text of God's Word has been dedicated to the public domain. Free downloads and unlimited usage available. See also the Berean Literal Bible and Berean Interlinear Bible.Berean Standard Bible (BSB) • Audio narration by Barry Hays • Dedicated to the public domain (CC0)
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