Preaching in the Power of God

2 When I came to you, brothers, I didn’t come and tell you about God’s secret^[a] with rhetorical language or wisdom. ² For while I was with you I resolved to know nothing except Jesus the Messiah,^[b] and him crucified. ³ It was in weakness, fear, and great trembling that I came to you. ⁴ My message and my preaching were not accompanied by clever, wise words, but by a display of the Spirit’s power, ⁵ so that your faith would not be based on human wisdom but on God’s power.

God’s Spirit Reveals Everything

⁶ However, when we are among mature people, we do speak a message of^[c] wisdom, but not the wisdom of this world or of the rulers of this world, who are passing off the scene. ⁷ Instead, we speak about God’s wisdom in a hidden secret, which God destined before the world began^[d] for our glory. ⁸ None of the rulers of this world understood it, because if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. ⁹ But as it is written,

¹⁰ But^[f] God has revealed those things to us by his Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the deep things of God.

¹¹ Is there anyone who can understand his own thoughts except his own inner spirit? In the same way, no one can know the thoughts of God except God’s Spirit. ¹² Now, we have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who comes from God, so that we can understand the things that were freely given to us by God. ¹³ We don’t speak about these things with words taught us by human wisdom, but with words^[g] taught by the Spirit, as we explain spiritual things to spiritual people.^{[h] 14} A person who isn’t spiritual doesn’t accept the things of God’s Spirit, for they are nonsense to him. He can’t understand them because they are spiritually evaluated. ¹⁵ The spiritual person evaluates everything but is subject to no one else’s evaluation. ¹⁶ For

However, we have the mind of the Messiah.^[k]