2 As for me, brothers, when I came to you, I did not come with superior speech or wisdom in order to proclaim to you the testimony^[a] of God. ² For I had no intention of knowing anything among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. ³ I came to you^[b] in weakness, in fear, and with much trembling. ⁴ My message and my preaching were not marked by persuasive words of human^[c] wisdom, but by a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, ⁵ so that your faith would not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.

In-Depth Wisdom Is for Spiritual People

⁶ Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature, but it is not a wisdom of this world or of the rulers of this world, who are being reduced to nothing. ⁷ Instead we speak God’s wisdom that has been hidden in mystery—before the ages, God foreordained that this wisdom would result in our glory. ⁸ None of the rulers of this world knew it. (If they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.) ⁹ But as it is written:

¹⁰ But God revealed it to us through his^[e] Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. ¹¹ Indeed, who among men knows a man’s thoughts except the man’s spirit within him? So also, no one else knows God’s thoughts except God’s Spirit.

¹² What we received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we might know the blessings freely given to us by God. ¹³ We also speak about these things, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual truths with spiritual words.^{[f] 14} However, an unspiritual person does not accept the truths taught by God’s Spirit, because they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually evaluated. ¹⁵ But the spiritual person evaluates all things, and he himself is evaluated by no one. ¹⁶ Indeed, “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Who will instruct him?”^[g] But we have the mind of Christ.