1 Corinthians 2
1 When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come with superior eloquence or wisdom as I proclaimed the testimony of God.
When Paul called the Corinthian church "brothers and sisters", then he was writing to fellow believers. Paul did not come to them as a textual or topical or seeker friendly preacher. He came and taught them the entire counsel of the Word of God using the expository method of teaching.
2 For I decided to be concerned about nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
Paul did not teach the Jesus of liberalism. He did not teach cute personal stories, analogies, human philosophy, or human interest stories. Paul taught Jesus crucified. The entire Old Testament pointed to the Messiah becoming the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world. There was no New Testament at this time, so the text of Paul was the Old Testament. He showed how the messianic prophecies were fulfilled by Jesus.
3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and with much trembling.
Paul never thought of himself as a great man. He saw himself as a very weak man who was scared to teach the gospel.
4 My conversation and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
Paul did not consider himself a great preacher. He just allowed the Holy Spirit to guide him in his study and teaching. He taught from the Old Testament what Jesus revealed to him through the Holy Spirit.
5 so that your faith would not be based on human wisdom but on the power of God.
Paul did not teach secular humanism or human viewpoint from the pulpit. He taught only those things from the Word of God.
Many pastors teach apologetics in order to persuade others to believe in Christ. They point out evidences of the flood, the evidence for a young earth, and the historical and archaeological data that supports Biblical history. There is a place for this, but Paul simply taught the Word of God. It is the Word of God which has the power to change a totally depraved and evil man into a believer and servant of Christ.
Wisdom from God
6 Now we do speak wisdom among the mature, but not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are perishing.
Paul did not use worldily methods, like many of the seeker church pastors of today. He simply taught the Word of God. Paul was giving this message to immature baby Christians in Corinth, who desired seeker-friendly type messages. Paul was informing them that they needed to learn only from the Word of God.
7 Instead we speak the wisdom of God, hidden in a mystery, that God determined before the ages for our glory.
A mystery to the Greeks was new revelation from the occult or from the mystery religions. Greeks spoke about these mystery religions often. Paul was informing these superstitious baby believers in Corinth that the mystery of God was determined before the foundations of the world, but it was now being revealed in their lifetime.
8 None of the rulers of this age understood it. If they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
The political and religious rulers of that day did not understand the mystery of the church, or the mystery of the called-out ones.
9 But just as it is written, “Things that no eye has seen, or ear heard, or mind imagined, are the things God has prepared for those who love him.”
Paul quoted Isaiah 64:4. There are spiritual things that the eye cannot see and the ear cannot hear. There are spiritual things that the mind cannot even begin to imagine. God prepared these mysteries long ago, but he is revealing these mysteries to the church. Many pastors like to use this verse at funerals, using it to justify that an unsaved dead man can now see or hear or imagine all of these spiritual mysteries about salvation that he could not see while living. This is not the meaning of this passage. The meaning was that the Corinthians were living in the age where Christ would reveal to them the mysteries of the gospel.
10 God has revealed these to us by the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.
Man cannot understand the deep truths of the Bible unless the Holy Spirit reveals them to him. The Holy Spirit's method is found in Ephesians 4. The apostles established the doctrine. Prophets proclaimed it while they were writing it. Evangelists proclaimed the way of salvation. Pastor-teachers with the gift of teaching taught the believer how to grow to spiritual maturity.
Charismatics like to use this verse to claim that God talks to them either verbally, or by an inner voice, or directly through the Scriptures. They will use human experience to justify their belief system. It is faulty to use human experience, because it can be manipulated by the enemy. It is only the written Word of God, not human experience, that reveals the method of studying Scripture and growing to maturity.
11 For who among men knows the things of a man except the man’s spirit within him? So too, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.
Humans understand human thinking, because they are human. However, humans do not have the capacity to understand God's thinking.
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 that are freely given to us by God.
Believers cannot understand the Bible by using the techniques of the world. This is why the methodology of the seeker-churches is wrong. Believers can only understand the Word of God by the Holy Spirit. This biblical method of learning and maturing is found in Ephesians 4.
13 And we speak about these things, not with words taught us by human wisdom, but with those taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual things to spiritual people.
Biblical knowledge does not come from human wisdom, but from the Spirit of God. The Corinthians were being encouraged to look to the Scriptures, not to outside resources, in order to find true wisdom.
14 The unbeliever does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. And he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
If an unbeliever hears the gospel or reads the Bible, then he will not be able to understand it. The Bible is a supernatural book. It cannot be understood unless the Holy Spirit makes a dead spirit alive. Once alive, the soul can understand and accept the message. Therefore, apologetics is useless to convert unbelievers. It is the believer's responsibility to share the gospel or teach the Word of God. It is the responsibility of the Holy Spirit to either open their ears or leave them closed.
The unbeliever does not have the spiritual capacity to make divine viewpoint decisions. All he can do is make human viewpoint decisions. Other unbelievers will think that these are good and honorable decisions, but according to Isaiah 65, they are dirty menstrual rags to God. The human viewpoint decisions of the unbeliever look good to other unbelievers, but they are actually serving Satan, the demons, and the satanic world system.
15 The one who is spiritual discerns all things, yet he himself is understood by no one.
It is possible that the Holy Spirit can fill a believer with a tremendous amount of Bible doctrine. However, this same believer with all of his knowledge cannot teach these truths to others, unless God opens the ears of the receiver.
16 For who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to advise him? But we have the mind of Christ.
God does not need man's opinion. Man cannot advise God on how to save people. The only way to have the mind of Christ is for the Holy Spirit to reveal information to believers from the entire counsel of the Word of God. This biblical method is found in Ephesians 4.
