ao:eng_webu
1 Corinthians 2
1When I came to you, brothers, I didn’t come with excellence of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.
2For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus and him .
3I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling.
4My speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
5that your wouldn’t stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
6We speak wisdom, however, among those who are full grown, yet a wisdom not of this world nor of the rulers of this world who are coming to nothing.
7But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom that has been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds for our glory,
8which none of the rulers of this world has known. For had they known it, they wouldn’t have the Lord of glory.
9But as it is written, “Things which an eye didn’t see, and an ear didn’t hear, which didn’t enter into the heart of man, these God has prepared for those who love him.”
10But to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
11For who among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God except God’s Spirit.
12But we received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that were freely given to us by God.
13We also speak these things, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things.
14Now the natural man doesn’t receive the things of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to him; and he can’t know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
15But he who is spiritual discerns all things, and he himself is to be judged by no one.
16“For who has known the mind of the Lord that he should instruct him?” But we have ’s mind.
Slow reading
Read 1 Corinthians 2 three times
Guided passes through short verse groups: read it whole, watch the words, then pray it back. Phrases to stop on along the way, with deeper explanation held back until you have read the verses yourself.
Ask about this chapter
Have a question about 1 Corinthians 2?
Ask anything about this chapter. Every answer names the verses it rests on and links straight to them, highlighted in the reader.
Study together
Questions on 1 Corinthians 2
Every comment is tied to a place in the text: a verse, a span of verses, or one section of the study. Ask what you do not understand, and answer others from Scripture.
Sign in to ask a question or answer one. Reading always stays open to everyone.
Questions this passage answers
Can the Bible be trusted?
Scripture claims to be true and invites examination rather than avoiding it. It says God's word is truth and that it stands when everything else fades, and the New Testament writers appeal to eyewitnesses, named places and public events rather than to private experience. Trust in Scripture is finally trust in the God who speaks in it, and the clearest reason a Christian gives for that trust is that Jesus treated these writings as God's own word.
Who is the Holy Spirit?
Scripture speaks of the Holy Spirit as a person rather than a force. Jesus calls him another Counselor whom the Father sends, and says he teaches, reminds, guides, convicts and speaks. Peter calls lying to the Holy Spirit lying to God. He is the one who gives new birth, dwells in believers, produces Christlike character, and always points to Christ rather than to himself.
How do I resist temptation?
Scripture says God always provides a way of escape, that temptation begins with desire inside us rather than with God, and that the ordinary means of resisting are watching, praying, walking by the Spirit, hiding God's word in the heart, and fleeing rather than negotiating. It does not promise that temptation stops, and it sends the tempted person to a High Priest who was tempted himself and can be approached for help.
Did Jesus really rise from the dead?
The New Testament says yes and puts the claim in a form that can be tested rather than admired. Paul lists named witnesses and a group of over five hundred still living when he wrote. The accounts describe a body that could be touched and that ate, not a vision. They also record the first alternative explanation, that the disciples stole him, and record who paid for it. Scripture treats the resurrection as the point on which everything stands or falls, and says so in those words.