Words of Wisdom
1 Corinthians 2-3 New International Version (NIV)
2 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.
God’s Wisdom Revealed by the Spirit
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. 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.
The Church and Its Leaders
3 Brothers and
sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people
who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you
milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still
not ready. 3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy
and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere
humans? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I
follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings?
5 What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only
servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his
task. 6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has
been making it grow. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the
one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8 The
one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be
rewarded according to their own labor. 9 For we are co-workers
in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.
10 By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise
builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with
care. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one
already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If anyone builds on
this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 their
work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It
will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s
work. 14 If what has been built survives, the builder will
receive a reward. 15 If it is burned up, the builder will
suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the
flames.
16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that
God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? 17 If anyone destroys God’s
temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you
together are that temple.
18 Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise
by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become
wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s
sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”[e]; 20 and again, “The Lord
knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.”[f] 21 So then, no more boasting
about human leaders! All things are yours, 22 whether Paul or
Apollos or Cephas[g] or the world or life or death or the present
or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are of Christ, and
Christ is of God.
I asked
the Lord to show me something to write about today and like always He
answered. This time in a different
way. I had started a blog last July
entitled, Words of Wisdom, but I never
finished it. So, today, I decided to
look up scriptures on wisdom. I
generally don’t post two whole chapters when I am writing a blog. However, in light of this scripture I think
it best that the Word of God be written not the words of Sheila. I believe God imparts on us words to write
but not in the same way as the scriptures.
So here are just a few thoughts about what I read.
First of
all, I remember hearing that Paul was a well-educated man. In the eyes of the Jews, he was probably
educated among the best, therefore, he probably would have been considered to
have had a lot of wisdom. It was not
until he truly met Christ did he realize that he did not have the wisdom that
he truly needed, the wisdom of Christ. I
found it interesting, beginning in Chapter 3:18, Paul talks about the wisdom that
man thinks he has. I have to wonder if
he was speaking from experience. He
says, “let him become a fool that he may become wise” and if you look back at
Chapter 2:3 he states, “And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much
trembling.” Paul, the strong leader that
was going to take down the Christians, was wise in his thinking but became weak
in order to become wise in Christ.
How many
of us think we are wise? I have been
well educated and have a vast amount of knowledge in the field of education but
am I wise in Christ? The way we become
wise in Christ is not through books and education, but rather by receiving Him into our lives and continually seeking Him with all our
hearts. That is something I need to
continue to work on. What about you?
Seeking
Him with all my heart,
Sheila
