READING 1 CORINTHIANS, CHAPTER 2

 

Friday, November 10, 2023

 INTRODUCING 1 CORINTHIANS, CHAPTER 2 

Paul reminds the Corinthians that he did not make an impressive display of his own speaking skills or knowledge when he first came to them. He wanted their faith to be in God's power, not human wisdom. God's ultimate wisdom can only be understood spiritually, revealed to human beings through God's Spirit. Those without God's Spirit cannot understand spiritual things. As a result, they reject the idea of Christ crucified for human sin as foolish. Through the Spirit, spiritual people have the mind of Christ. (https://www.bibleref.com/Romans/2/Romans-chapter-2.html)

Verses 1-5, JEANNIE

¹ And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.^[a] 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. ³ I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. ⁴ My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, ⁵ so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.

SECTION QUESTIONS:

1. How did Paul come to teach the Gospel? (V.1-2)

2. Why should we teach with the demonstration of the Spirit's power? (V.5)

3. How do we demonstrate the power of the Holy Spirit?

Thought Questions:

1. What kind of power did Paul NOT emphasize and why not? (V.4-5)

2) God's Wisdom Revealed by the Spirit, Verses 6-10, Part 1, DESTINY

⁶ We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. ⁷ No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. ⁸ None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. ⁹ However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”^[b]— the things God has prepared for those who love him— ¹⁰ these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.

SECTION QUESTIONS:

1.     What end does human wisdom come to? (V.6)

2.     Who did not recognize God’s wisdom? (V.8)

3.     What did they do because of their ignorance? (V.8)

4.     How are the mysteries of God revealed to those who love Him? (V.10)

Thought Questions:

1. What kind of power and wisdom did Paul emphasize and why? (V.6-7)

2. Why is God's wisdom described as a mystery in verse 7?

3) God's Wisdom Revealed by the Spirit, Verses 11-16, Part 2, MRS. ELNORA

¹¹ For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. ¹² What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. ¹³ This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.^[c] 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. ¹⁵ The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, ¹⁶ for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?”^[d] But we have the mind of Christ.

SECTION QUESTIONS:

1. Who is the only one who knows the thoughts of God? (V.11)

2. How should we speak? (V.13)

3. Contrast between a non-spiritual person and a spirit-filled person. (V.14-15)

4. Who is really the most knowledgeable person? (V.15)

Thought Questions:

1. How would you explain verse 11 to someone else?

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1 Corinthians 2:14-16 (MSG)

The unspiritual self, just as it is by nature, can’t receive the gifts of God’s Spirit. There’s no capacity for them. They seem like so much silliness. Spirit can be known only by spirit-God’s Spirit and our spirits in open communion. Spiritually alive, we have access to everything God’s spirit is doing, and can’t be judged by unspiritual critics. Isaiah’s question, “Is there anyone around who knows God’s Spirit, anyone who knows what he is doing?” (Isaiah 40:13) has been answered: Christ knows, and we have Christ’s Spirit.

A Prayer Confession for 1Corinthians, Chapter 2: 

Heavenly Father, what a wonderful example of a man of humility and grace in Paul who did not seek to use his own wisdom, academic ability, intellectual stature, or oratory skills in his ministry, but recognized his own human limitation and instead, became a living sacrifice unto God. I pray that I will never seek to elevate my own importance in the eyes of man but present my life as a living sacrifice, holy to the Lord - so that in Your power I may be enabled to share the simple gospel of grace to a lost and dying world, not in my own strength, but through the power of Him Who called me out of darkness into His glorious light. This I ask in Jesus' name, AMEN. Source: (https://prayer.knowing-jesus.com/1-Corinthians/2)