• Paul’s Reliance upon the Spirit

  • 1 And when I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come as someone superior in speaking ability or wisdom, as I proclaimed to you the testimony of God.
  • 2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
  • 3 I also was with you in weakness and fear, and in great trembling,
  • 4 and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
  • 5 so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of mankind, but on the power of God.
  • 6 Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away;
  • 7 but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory;
  • 8 the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory;
  • 9 but just as it is written: “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, And which have not entered the human heart, All that God has prepared for those who love Him.”
  • 10 For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.
  • 11 For who among people knows the thoughts of a person except the spirit of the person that is in him? So also the thoughts of God no one knows, except the Spirit of God.
  • 12 Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.
  • 13 We also speak these things, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.
  • 14 But a natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
  • 15 But the one who is spiritual discerns all things, yet he himself is discerned by no one.
  • 16 For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.