BACK TO THE BASICS-1 Corinthians 2: 1-16
A. What was happening in Corinth:
1. The Christians had embraced the “word of the cross” but at the same time they were being influenced to mix the “word” with the philosophies of men and humanist thinking.
2. As a result these brethren were divided (1: 10); they allowed immoral relationships (5:1-5), they were taking each other to court (6:1-6); they ate from the table of the Lord as well as the table of demons (10: 16-22); and more.
B. Today people do the same.
1. They mix human wisdom with God’s revealed message.
2. The result is a hybrid message which is convoluted and polluted.
3. Consequently people are misled, frustrated, lost and confused.
C. The apostle Paul, in order to keep our lives in order and to keep us secure in our salvation writes chapter 2 to remind us and encourage us to return, if necessary, to some fundamentals in reference to the Gospel.
THE FUNDAMENTALS OF PREACHING:
VS. 1-2 And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. 2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
1. Paul didn’t come to Corinth to glorify himself; he came to glorify God and “to preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified!”
2. Paul didn’t depend on eloquence or clever arguments; he simply declared the Word of God in the power of the Spirit.
3. If he would have used spectacular speech the people would have been impressed with him and exalted him consequently failing to see Christ; (1:17).
4. Many preachers magnify themselves and fail to reveal the glory of Christ.
Vs. 3-5 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. 4 And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.
1. It is not about the preacher!
2. Paul didn’t come to Lord himself over these brethren; he came in weakness, fear, and trembling.
3. His preaching was a “demonstration of the Spirit” and not a “performance by a man.”
4. He became nothing so that Christ would be everything; vs. 5.
THE FUNDAMENTALS OF THE MESSAGE:
Vs. 6: Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature;a wisdom, however, not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away;
1. All we have to do is look around us at the life styles, the religions, the philosophies, and the psychologies to find out that the wisdom of this age is self-destructive and unstable.
2. Paul says that the apostles do not preach “a wisdom” like that; their “wisdom” saves, builds, and stands.
3. The “wisdom” the apostles preached was not and is not bound to an age.
Vs. 7: but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God predestined before the ages to our glory;
1. You can’t get a higher wisdom than this!
2. Here is a wisdom that will challenge anyone’s keenest intellect; and when the most intelligent get through with the wisdom revealed in the word of God they still won’t know it all.
3. The word “mystery” is not talking about something that is strange, mysterious, or spooky; it is speaking of facts that man did not know and that they could not discover on their own; the only way those facts can be known is by revelation.
4. This wisdom was in God’s mind even before the world began!
5. God revealed this wisdom to us “for our glory!”
Vs. 8: the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory;
1. All those who considered themselves so smart, so intellectual, they did not understand this wisdom of God for if they would have they would not have crucified Jesus.
2. The devastating proof that all those who seem and proclaim themselves to be so wise but really are not is that fact that they have rejected and denied Christ.
3. It is sad that we are sometimes influenced to leave the word of God behind and embrace the wisdom of the world by people who have rejected Christ!
Vs. 10: For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. 11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man, which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God,
1. The only way you can know what God is thinking is if He reveals it to you.
2. God, by His Spirit, reveals His thinking to us through the Bible.
Vs. 13: which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.
1. “spiritual thoughts” – revelation; “spiritual words” – inspiration.
2. God is not pleased when people change, twist, or add to His word; Rev. 22: 18-19.
Vs.14 But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. 15 But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no man. 16 For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.
1. The ‘natural man” or people in the world are not going to understand the things written in the word of God or why we as Christians do the things we do.
2. But we will understand why they do the things they do because God tells us exactly who the world is; in fact, because of the wisdom God reveals to us in His word we may know people in the world better than they know themselves.
CONCLUSION: The word of God is a marvelous book with a marvelous message of Christ and the cross. No matter what the world says may our song always be: “Give Me The Bible.”