Book of Common Prayer

The powerful message of the cross

2 This is how it was for me, too, my dear family. When I came to you, I didn’t come and proclaim God’s mystery to you by means of a superior style of speaking or wisdom. ² No: I decided to know nothing in my dealings with you except Jesus the Messiah, especially his crucifixion. ³ I came to you in weakness, in great fear and trembling. ⁴ My speech and my proclamation were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in transparent proof brought home powerfully by the spirit, ⁵ so that your faith might not be in human wisdom but in God’s power.

God’s strange wisdom

⁶ We do, however, speak wisdom among the mature. But this isn’t a wisdom of this present world, or of the rulers of this present world—those same rulers who are being done away with. ⁷ No: we speak God’s hidden wisdom in a mystery. This is the wisdom God prepared ahead of time, before the world began, for our glory.

⁸ None of the rulers of this present age knew about this wisdom. If they had, you see, they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory. ⁹ But, as the Bible says,

¹⁰ —and that’s what God has revealed to us through the spirit! The spirit, you see, searches everything, yes, even the depths of God. ¹¹ Think of it this way: who knows what is really going on inside a person, except the spirit of the person which is inside them? Well, it’s like that with God. Nobody knows what is going on inside God except God’s spirit. ¹² And we haven’t received the spirit of the world, but the spirit that comes from God, so that we can know the things that have been given to us by God.

¹³ That, then, is what we speak. We don’t use words we’ve been taught by human wisdom, but words we’ve been taught by the spirit, interpreting spiritual things to spiritual people.

²⁹ They came out of the synagogue, and went at once (with James and John) into Simon and Andrew’s house. ³⁰ Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told Jesus about her right away. ³¹ He went in, took her by the hand, and raised her up. The fever left her, and she waited on them.

³² When the sun went down and evening came, they brought to Jesus everyone who was ill, including the demon-possessed. ³³ The whole town was gathered around the door. ³⁴ Jesus healed many people suffering from all kinds of diseases, and cast out many demons. He didn’t allow the demons to speak, because they knew him.

The healing of a man with a skin disease

³⁵ Very early—in the middle of the night, actually—Jesus got up and went out, off to a lonely place, and prayed. ³⁶ Simon, and those with him, followed. ³⁷ When they found him, they said, “Everyone is looking for you!”

³⁸ “Let’s go off to the other towns around here,” Jesus replied, “so that I can tell the news to people there too. That’s why I came out.”

³⁹ So he went into their synagogues, throughout the whole of Galilee, telling the news and casting out demons.

⁴⁰ A man with a virulent skin disease came up to him. He knelt down and begged him, “If you want to, you can make me clean!”

⁴¹ Jesus was deeply moved. He reached out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do want to: be clean!” ⁴² The disease left him at once, and he was clean.

⁴³ Jesus sent him away at once, with this stern warning: ⁴⁴ “Mind you don’t say anything to anyone! Just go and show yourself to the priest, and make the offering Moses commanded, to purify yourself and to give them a sign.”

⁴⁵ But the man went out and began to spread the news far and wide. He did this so effectively that Jesus couldn’t any longer go publicly into a town. He stayed out in the open country, and people came to him from all around.