1Cor 2 | EE | STEP | Christian friends, I came to tell you God’s message, which is certainly true. I did not use clever words when I told it to you. I did not use great thoughts and ideas that were my own.

1 Corinthians 2

We can understand God’s secrets only by his Spirit

1 Christian friends, I came to tell you God’s message, which is certainly true. I did not use clever words when I told it to you. I did not use great thoughts and ideas that were my own. 2 I decided to teach you only about Jesus Christ. I wanted to forget everything else while I was with you. So, I taught only about Jesus. I taught you about how he died on a cross of wood. 3 I was feeling very weak when I arrived. I was so afraid that I was trembling. ^{▼▼2:3 ‘Trembling’ means that Paul could not keep his body completely still, because he was so afraid.} 4 Neither clever words nor my own thoughts and ideas made you believe that my message was true. No, instead God’s Spirit showed by my words how powerful God is. 5 So, you believe because of God’s power. You do not believe because of human thoughts and ideas.

6 But we do speak about great ideas to those of you who really know Christ. We do not speak about clever human thoughts and ideas that belong to this world. The rulers of this world think thoughts and ideas like that, but they will stop being powerful soon. 7 No, the great ideas that we speak about are secret. They belong to God. He hid them from the people who belong to this world. But he decided to show these secrets to us so that we could live with him always. He decided this before he made the world. 8 None of the rulers of this world understood these great ideas. If they had understood, they would not have killed the Lord on a cross. They would not have killed the Lord, who is so very great and good. 9 It says in the Bible:

‘Nobody ever saw or heard anything about this.
Nobody ever thought that it could happen.
But this is the thing that God has prepared for his people.
He has prepared it for those people who love him.’

10 But God has shown these secrets to us by his Spirit. God’s Spirit looks at everything. He looks even at the things that are deep in God. 11 Only a person’s own spirit, inside that person, can know everything about that person. And it is like that with God. Nobody can understand everything about God except God’s Spirit. 12 We have not received the spirit that belongs to this world. No! We have received the Spirit who is from God. So, as a result, we can understand all the things that God has done on our behalf. We can know what God has given to us. 13 These are the things that we speak about. We do not use human ideas that other people have taught us. Instead, we use ideas that God’s Spirit teaches us. That is why we can explain God’s ideas to people. But we can explain only to people in whom God’s Spirit is living.

14 If God’s Spirit is not living inside people, they cannot receive anything from God. They cannot understand what God wants to teach them. They think that it is crazy. They think that it is worth nothing. 15 Only people with God’s Spirit inside them can really understand and decide about all things. But people without God’s Spirit cannot understand anything about God’s people. 16 As it says in the Bible:

‘Nobody can know what the Lord is thinking.
Nobody can teach him anything.’

But we can think as Christ thinks.