Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

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.