1 Corinthians 2

1For my part, brothers and sisters, when I came to you and announced God’s testimony to you, I did not come with impressive speech or superior wisdom. 2My decision was this: while I was among you, the only thing I would know was Jesus Christ, and him as the one who was crucified. 3While I was with you, I was weak and afraid, and I trembled greatly. 4My message and my preaching did not depend on wisdom’s power to persuade; they were proof given by the Spirit and by power, 5so that your faith would be grounded not in human wisdom but in the power of God.

6There is a wisdom we speak, all the same, among those who are mature. It is not the wisdom of this present age, nor of its rulers, whose power is already being brought to an end. 7Instead, the wisdom we speak is God’s own, a mystery that has been kept hidden. God planned it before the ages for our glory. 8Not one of this age’s rulers grasped this wisdom. Had they grasped it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9But this is what Scripture describes: “Things no eye ever saw and no ear ever heard, things that never rose up in any human heart: these God has made ready for those who love him.” 10And it is to us that God has made them known, through the Spirit. For nothing is beyond the Spirit’s searching, not even the depths of God. 11After all, what human being knows what is going on inside someone else? Only that person’s own spirit within knows it. In the same way, the things of God are known to no one but the Spirit of God. 12We, for our part, have not received the spirit of the world. We have received the Spirit who comes from God, so that we may recognize all that God has graciously given us. 13When we speak of these things, our words are not lessons learned from human wisdom. The Spirit teaches them, and so we explain spiritual things in words the Spirit gives.

14A person who has only natural life does not welcome what belongs to the Spirit of God. It all seems foolish to such a person, who cannot grasp it, because it can be weighed rightly only by the Spirit. 15But the spiritual person is able to assess all things, while no one is in a position to assess such a person. 16For “who has ever known the mind of the Lord well enough to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.