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Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.
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I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius,
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For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
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Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
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For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.
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Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.
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God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are,
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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.
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For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
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My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power,
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so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
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God’s Wisdom Revealed by the Spirit
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.
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None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,
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The Church and Its Leaders
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.
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I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.
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You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans?
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For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings?
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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.
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I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself.
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My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.
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Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God.
