神的智慧 Wisdom From God

哥林多前书 1 Cor 2:6–16

News

Hook

Passage

Today’s passage has been misinterpreted quite often throughout church history.

Wrong interpretation leads to wrong application.

Numerous cults, strange church sects, schisms, etc., have come about because of today’s passage.

Section 1 <35–39>

This verse obviously continues previous one.

Previous passage speaks about wisdom of this world
and how the Corinthians have brought this worldly wisdom into the church.

Now we continue, with Paul introducing a different kind of wisdom: Wisdom of God.

“Mature” is a term well known and used in Greek philosophy, it’s a technical term for “mystery religion.”
But here, Paul is redefining it to mean someone who believed in Paul’s message: the message of the cross.

Lessons

1. We need to emphasise once again: Paul is not against wisdom.
   He’s just against worldly wisdom, a wisdom that doesn’t acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.
2. Corinthians should be mature (as opposed to the “rulers of this age”),
   but they’re behaving exactly like these worldly rulers. I.e., they’re immature!
3. We (Christians) also use worldly wisdom, because such wisdom is also given by God.
   Believing in God doesn’t mean we turn off our brains and just blindly believe.
   We use wisdom, logic, the scientific method, etc., to study the Bible.
4. Once again, having or using worldly wisdom is what we should do.
   What we shouldn’t do is to use this worldly wisdom to try and find God (i.e., creating our own god).

There’s a book published back in 2023 (I haven’t read it yet): Joseph Minich, Bulwarks of Unbelief: Atheism and Divine Absence in a Secular Age.

His main thesis is that modernity (technology, science, etc.) creates atheists.

“…a felt absence of God, as experienced by the modern individual, offers a better explanation for the rise in atheism.”

Section 2 <40–44>

A “secret and hidden” wisdom.

Many are excited when they read “hidden and secret” wisdom!

But the Bible always have a consistent meaning for hidden, secret, or mystery of God:
It is something that was once hidden, but is now revealed.

There is no “special knowledge” that only a few can understand.

There are no spiritual elites, like they’re more spiritual than you or I.

This mystery can be known to anyone,
and for people who are considered foolish by this world, it’s particularly easy to grasp!

This is probably a quote from Isa 64:4.

We say probably because the quote isn’t very exact.
It looks like it’s mainly from Isa 64:4, but mixed in with something else by Paul.
There are lots of opinions as to exactly where Paul got this quote from.

The point here is that this secret or mystery was hidden in the OT, but is now revealed to everyone in the gospel.

Lessons

1. “Secret and hidden wisdom of God” means previously hidden, but now revealed in the gospel.
2. Anyone can understand this secret. You don’t need to have “special knowledge,” or be a “spiritual elite,” etc.
3. As soon as you hear things like: “We have special spiritual knowledge that only our church knows…”
   Run!

Section 3 <45–49>

1 Cor 2:10b “For the Spirit “searches everything…”

Searches here means the Spirit knows all thoughts, even every person’s private thoughts.

So in the same way, the Spirit reveals to us the mysteries or secrets of God.

This brings us back to the hook: no one knows what you’re thinking, unless you share what that is.

Similarly, no one knows the thoughts (or will) of God, unless the Spirit reveals them.

So again, it’s through the Holy Spirit that we know the things of God.
NOT through human wisdom.

This stresses again that we’re not using the spirit of this world (worldly wisdom) to know about God.

We know about things of God because the Spirit revealed them to us.

Lessons

Section 4 <50–54>

Again, the Holy Spirit allows us to know the things of God, to understand God’s Word (the Bible).

1 Cor 2:14 “Natural person” means an unbeliever, a non-Christian.

Such a person won’t understand spiritual things of God.

In fact, they think such things are foolish.

Only the spiritual person (believer) can understand and know these things.

1 Cor 2:16 The quote is from Isa 40:13.

It’s the same conclusion here: We have God’s Spirit living inside of us, that’s how we understand God’s mystery.

与我有什么关系? So What?

1. To truly know someone, you have to have a relationship with the person.
2. To truly know God, to know his will,
   we need to have God’s wisdom, which is the gospel message: believe in Jesus Christ.
   There are numerous Bible scholars who know the Bible really, really well, but they don’t know God.
3. God’s mystery (or secret) has already been revealed to us (in the NT, through Jesus, through the cross, through the Spirit).
4. To believe in God doesn’t mean you shut down your brain or your wisdom.
   Rather, we need to use rational thinking, logic, etc., and through the revelation of the Holy Spirit,
   in order to understand God’s Word.