Christ Crucified

2 And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the ^[a]testimony of God. ² For I determined not to know anything among you ^(A)except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. ^3 (B)I was with you ^(C)in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. ⁴ And my speech and my preaching ^(D)were not with persuasive words of ^[b]human wisdom, ^(E)but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, ⁵ that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the ^(F)power of God.

Spiritual Wisdom

⁶ However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. ⁷ But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ^[c]ordained before the ages for our glory, ⁸ which none of the rulers of this age knew; for ^(G)had they known, they would not have ^(H)crucified the Lord of glory.

⁹ But as it is written:

¹⁰ But ^(J)God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. ¹¹ For what man knows the things of a man except the ^(K)spirit of the man which is in him? ^(L)Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. ¹² Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but ^(M)the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.

¹³ These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the ^[d]Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. ^14 (N)But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. ¹⁵ But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. ¹⁶ For ^(O)“who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” ^(P)But we have the mind of Christ.