God’s Wisdom

1 Corinthians 2: 1-16 (February 6, 2011)

1) The Text

When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. 2For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. 4My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.

6Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. 7But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him”— 10these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. 12Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. 13And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual. 14Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else’s scrutiny. 16“For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

2) The Context

In the previous chapter, Paul has laid out for the Corinthians his view of the primary purpose of his letter; to address the divisions within the church in Corinth which he founded. While the church was blessed with Spiritual gifts, the church was carnal in its behavior toward each other. Paul will return to this primary topic of division in chapter three but here in chapter two, he continues to instruct on the differences between godly wisdom and wisdom of the world.

3) Interpretation

Throughout 1 Corinthians 2:1-16 Paul places God's wisdom and the world's wisdom in sharpest antithesis. The special wisdom to which Paul claims access (a) is God's wisdom, that (b) leads God's people to glory, and (c) is knowable only by the Spirit. This stands in stark contrast (a) to the world's and the world's leaders' wisdom, that (b) is the product of people doomed for destruction, and (c) lacks the sight to apprehend the saving wisdom of God.

The cross is at the center of this dichotomy. The rulers of this age put their worldly "wisdom" on display when they crucified "the Lord of glory" (2:8).
There is some debate about who Paul intends by "the rulers of this age": is this a reference to the spiritual forces that rule over the earth, to the earthly leaders themselves, the power of the systems that exceed the doings of any set of individuals, or some combination of these? Though the rule of which Paul speaks is exercised through human agents, it is also clear throughout the passage that something larger is in view. Behind these human agents stand other cosmic forces and a world-system that is larger and more powerful than the individuals who enact its understanding of "wisdom". Paul sets the disputes in Corinth on a cosmic stage: to side with those who advocate worldly wisdom is to side not with the God who saves by means of the cross but, with those who blindly warred against God's wisdom by crucifying the Lord of glory (2:8).

If human wisdom is manifest most plainly in the wisdom of the rulers of this age who put Jesus to death, how is a human ever going to be capable of knowing the wisdom of God? In the final section of today's reading Paul insists that it is only by receiving the Spirit that one can know the things of God (2:10-16). Because God has given the Spirit, those who receive the Spirit can know the mysterious wisdom of God.

Paul probably has his eye on the competition that has erupted on the ground at Corinth, where Apollos' high level of attainment in the world's standards of wisdom has led to the formation of a group that identifies as his followers. Undermining the value of this group's claim to superior learning, Paul maintains that the Spirit whom believers receive is none other than the Spirit of God with God's cruciform wisdom—it is not the Spirit of the world with its Christ-crucifying "wisdom" (2:12).

And so one more time we see that the story we tell about the cross of Christ becomes the measure by which the stories of our own communities are judged. Do we hope to draw people to our communities based on our ability to achieve, in step with the corporate, educational, and political systems that set up our own cultures' assessments of power? Or, are we participating in the upside down economy of the cross, an economy that can only be known and understood and believed and lived by the power of God's Holy Spirit?

4) Thought Exercise

Is there any wisdom you have that seems to come from God?

Are there any parallels between this wisdom and the ways of living that Jesus speaks about in the Beatitudes in last week’s passage?