God’s wisdom is revealed only by the Spirit.

Often we refer to “going to the source” as a step that we take to ensure that we completely understand what someone meant.

Maybe a machine breaks at work, you could just mess with it, or you could go to the manual and learn directly from the source what may be happening.

Another common occurrence for us happened as a kid, maybe your sibling told you “mom said…” and follows it up with some random demand that would oddly enough benefit your sibling, and you decided, I am going to go to mom, I am going to the source and check if mom actually said this.

For students in school, maybe a teacher explained the requirements for a project but a few in the class think that he said one thing and others say he said the opposite. The often stated next line is “I will go ask him.” or “Let me email him.”

We all understand that the best way and sometimes the only way to know for sure what someone meant and to truly understand them is to go to the source. We must do the same with God. God gives us direct access to himself that allows us to “go to the source” and secure the answers that we need.

Text Intro

The last few weeks we have looked at verses where Paul has rejected human wisdom. He has made it clear that human wisdom is often contrary to God’s wisdom. This week Paul qualifies what he has been saying. He essentially says, “however” and then explains that not all wisdom is thrown out. God’s wisdom is what we as Christians can rely on and trust.

1 Corinthians 2:6–16 KJV 1900

6 Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: 7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: 8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. 10 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. 13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. 16 For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

Verse 6 has some questions that need to be answered. When we answer these, the rest of the passage is taken with the right context.

The major question is, what is the message of wisdom that the apostles are bringing? We know that it is a mystery and it is hidden wisdom (v. 7).

We also know that it is given to those people who are “perfect”.

The word perfect in verse 1 means mature. It is important that we realize that this is not referring to the gospel because if we assume this hidden wisdom is only revealed to mature people, then we will be contradicting the Bible when it says that salvation is offered to everyone. Anyone can be saved and Paul is not saying that he only preached the gospel to those he deems mature because the gospel is for everyone.

The mature group of people that he is talking about are those who are already saved.

In verse 7, there is also a term that meant something different in Paul’s day. “Mystery” meant something that was hidden and is now revealed and can be understood (even though it is not understood by all yet). Today we would think of a mystery as something we would have to solve but his audience understood it as an already revealed truth that is available to all.

So we see the importance of God’s wisdom in this passage. We also have seen in previous weeks that God’s wisdom seems like foolishness to the world.

So how do we understand God’s wisdom?

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Because God gave us His Spirit, we can understand God’s wisdom.

God’s wisdom is not understood by human means. - v. 9-

In previous verses, Paul has established that the world sees the cross as foolishness. All throughout these opening chapters of 1 Corinthians he makes the point that God’s wisdom does not make sense to the wise men in this world. The cross is foolish from a human perspective.

and this is because God is on a different plane this us, we don’t have the whole picture.

Verse 9 makes a statement about reality to prove a point. Paul points to the human means of seeing, hearing, and reasoning and says that we can’t know the things that God has done for us through those means. In simpler terms, Paul is saying that we can’t know God through human means.

Argue:

Paul doesn’t use any effort to argue this point because he knows that anyone who has been paying attention and is being honest will agree that we do not naturally know God on our own. “If God really did use the foolish means of a cross to save the world than clearly we don’t know God” is the thought that is going through the heads of every first century reader.

But God does want us to know him. He has not left us to sit in the dark and stay foolish.

Apply:

No amount of reading, thinking, observing or searching can help us know God better.

The Spirit uses these activities to help us get to know God better.

God’s wisdom is revealed by the Spirit. - v 10-16

Explain:

We know that God’s Spirit interacts with us, He is available to believers, He seeks to be involved in our lives.

Verse 15 says that we can evaluate all things with the Spirit, this is meant to be understood in a Spiritual context. We can evaluate all spiritual things with the help of the Spirit.

"Paul isn't saying Christians become experts in every subject. He's saying that because we have the Spirit, we can rightly discern God's truth, recognize error, and understand the gospel in a way the natural person cannot." (ChatGPT)

When God’s Spirit enlightens the truth of God’s Word, we find ourselves in an amazing place. We can evaluate all things but he also says we cannot be evaluated by anyone. Paul’s point is not that other Christians don’t have the ability to judge us, as a matter of fact, if we are doing the work of the kingdom, we may stick out and may even be judged, but we are unfazed by their judgement because we have the mind of Christ and are unshaken by challenges. This is such an amazing place to be.

Verse 11 gives the best explanation that I can give. If you are trying to understand God, go to His Spirit. Paul illustrates this point in verse 11 by pointing to us, he essentially says, no one really knows you except for your own spirit, so in the same way, no one really knows God except His Spirit.

Illustrate:

“Two students can read the exact same textbook. One merely memorizes facts, while the other actually grasps the concepts. The words are the same, but understanding is different. Likewise, many people can read the Bible, but only the Spirit opens our eyes to God's wisdom.” (ChatGPT)

Argue:

Some would push back and say that they know people who aren’t christians who know the Bible better than christians. Paul makes this distinction clear though. He distinguishes between human intellectual understanding and God’s wisdom.

Some would also point to the imperfection of Christians or the varying views that are held by different Christians. They would ask, “If the Spirit is actively involved in believers lives and giving them discernment, why do Christians disagree on so many things?” The answer is that even though the Spirit is completely sufficient, we are not, we often ignore the Spirit’s guidance and don’t walk perfectly in step with Him.

Others have used the Spirit as an excuse to avoid pastoral leadership in their lives. This is improper because it is the Spirit who is equipping and working through the teachers and preachers. Even in our verses, we see that the apostles are given a message to give to the people of that day (v. 13). Pastors and teachers aren’t given God’s word audibly like the apostles recieved it but they are still given a message from God based on the Bible.

Apply:

For Paul’s audience, the wisdom of God was being revealed by the apostles, today it is being revealed in the Bible but its like I said earlier, no amount of reading brings us closer to God, it is only when the Holy Spirit enables us to understand that we will understand God’s wisdom.

For many of us, we know that we are not on board with God’s wisdom. It’s not that we think that God is wrong but we have yet to understand God’s wisdom the way that we know we are supposed to.

We need to start by opening our Bible and asking the Spirit to guide us in God’s wisdom. Maybe we are so unsure where to start that the best decision is to come to a pastor and ask for guidance on where to start.

For others, we believe that the Spirit has revealed most of God’s wisdom to us and that we generally understand it and that this message is for someone else. This may be the worst place to be because we are so blinded by pride that we think we are at a good spot.

Ask God to use His Spirit to reveal to you all the ways that you do not know Him yet. Address the Spirit directly asking Him to reveal more of God’s wisdom to you.

Conclusion

How do we do this? This whole time, we have talked about how God’s wisdom is not understood by any means except the Spirit and how it is completely necessary in guiding us to God’s wisdom but how do we allow the Spirit to give us God’s wisdom?

We have consistent devotions that are started with prayer (asking the Spirit to reveal to us God’s wisdom) and ended with reflection.

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We ask God to humble us so that as we go through life, our worldly perspective is shifted to a godly perspective.

We obey the commands that we know we should obey.

We come to God’s word looking to be corrected, unafraid to be wrong, and hungry to learn.

I just listed a lot of steps but these steps aren’t just steps that we take and now we are successful once we have taken them. Every “step” must be dependent on the Spirit completely.

God wants to reveal himself to us through his Spirit. The question is, are we willing to take the steps to learn about Him through His Spirit?

God does not reject all wisdom. He rejects human wisdom. He has His own wisdom that is accepted.

The spirit is the one who makes this hidden wisdom of God discernible.