The Spirit Teaches a Hidden Wisdom (Ch 2)

2:1-5 - Paul Expands on the Meaning of  Power

1. V1-2 - Lofty speech and wisdom is not anti-intellectual or poor grammar. Paul means that he didn’t have the appearances that the divisive leadership had at Corinth. He made no claims to transcendent knowledge that the Corinthians craved. Rather, he came knowing only the wisdom of Christ crucified. 

   
   



2. V3 - He has reverted back to the Corinthian paradigm, that wisdom is power and the cross is foolishness when he says that he was with them in weakness.

   
   



3. V4-5 - A new set of contradictions: Persuasive words versus a demonstration of the Spirit and his power. A leader may speak in a way that moves someone to be convinced of, or the Holy Spirit may manifest himself to the hearer and powerfully bring something into being. What the Spirit is doing is Paul’s summary of both the chapter and the letter as a whole. While the Corinthians were seeking a force (leader with lofty words) that had the capacity to bring them to a higher plane of being, the Spirit, through the word of the Cross (the crucified Jesus) is doing just that. So, Paul says, rest, not in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. Note: Paul returns to this in 4:19-20.

   
   

   
   2:6-10 - God Has Prepared Something For Us By the Spirit   
   

   
   

1. V6 - Paul will speak in two parts now. First, for the rest of the chapter, he will explain what a truly mature person would understand. After that, in chapter 3 he will tell the Corinthian that they are infants and can’t understand the Spirit’s power, which is why they continually act against it.

   
   





1. “Pass away”: He will use death as a key player in his story onward. There are two deaths. The passing away of the rulers and wisdom of the world and the death of the cross.

   
   



2. “The rulers of this age” could be either human rulers or the demonic spirits.

   
   





2. V7 - A secret and hidden wisdom is Paul’s version of the Corinthian idea of transcendence. God prepared this before time.

   
   



3. V8 - Two good takes in this passage:

   
   





1. That the rulers of this age killed Jesus is evidence that the two types of wisdom contradict each other, serve different ends and can’t cohabitate. We either die with Jesus or we crucify him.

   
   



2. Many in the church have speculated that Satan and the demons never grasped how God would redeem man. It was a secret even to them, which is why they killed Jesus unknowingly.

   
   





4. V9 - “Eye has not seen…” Paul’s letter has the goal of the Corinthians seeing and knowing all that God is doing. His end is summarized in chapter 15 where the fleshly body is planted in death and the spiritual body is raised through the power of the Spirit.

   
   



5. V10 - These things prepared do not remain hidden to us. They aren’t still a secret. We are meant to know them “through the Spirit”.

   
   

   
   2:11-16 - The Spirit, The Mind of God and the Mind of Christ in Us
   

   
   

1. V11-12 - The Spirit knows and understands the mind of God. He has been given to us so that we too can know and understand the mind of God.
   



2. V13 - Again the contradiction, the mind of God can’t be known in words of human wisdom, but they are taught by the Spirit to those who are spiritual.

   
   





1. Spiritual here is not a measurement of quality of someone’s Christianity.

   
   



2. Spiritual means “of the Spirit” as opposed to “of the flesh”.

   
   





3. V14 - The natural/human person does not have the Spirit and therefore is not being taught the things that exist in the mind of God. He cannot see or accept these things. They remain folly to him.

   
   



4. V15 - The spiritual person, Paul assumes, interacts so closely with God, that he has proper judgment of all things. There’s nothing left to judge in the spiritual person because they have become united with God and inseparable in thought, will, understanding and action.

   
   



5. V16 - He summarizes the power of the Spirit: He who knows the Father intimately has brought us into and brought into us the mind of Christ.

   
   

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