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Day 2 - Wisdom of God and the wisdom of man

Paul emphatically says that God cannot be found by means of human wisdom.

Day

Passage

1 Corinthians 2


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.[a] 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.

God’s Wisdom Revealed by the Spirit

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”[b]—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—

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

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spiritwithin them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 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.13 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.[c] 14 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. 15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for,

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

But we have the mind of Christ.

Questions

1. What does Paul mean by ‘excellence of wisdom’ in vs 1? When would it be right to preach doctrinal truths or have an apologetic approach (vs 6)? Why is this not recommended by Paul for evangelistic preaching?


2 In vs 6-12 the wisdom of God is obtained by the revelation of the Holy Spirit alone or by both the revelation of the Holy Spirit and application of the mind?


3 What is the implication of vs 14 which says that the natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit? Does this mean that we should not preach to people far and wide but only to those who are seeking God? Or do we sow and leave the results to the hand of God and heart of the listeners?

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