We are going through 1 Corinthians, chapter 2 in small group tonight, and this week I focused my reading on sermons and some webpages that touched on this chapter.
Here’s some clippings that I found interesting:
You only get it, if God gives it. You can’t find God’s wisdom by your own effort. God is too great, too wise, too good, too holy, too immense, for us to see or grasp without him telling us.
What are you taking pride in? Maybe you don’t admire secular wisdom, but is there something you boast in other than God? For me, there’s the temptation that I’ll look to my theological training. That what I learn about God becomes more important than knowing God himself. Or that I trust in my work with Christian Union rather than in Christ.
Wisdom or Foolishness by Chris Appleby
For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. —1 Cor 2:2
So instead of showing off his intellect – and he had it, believe me, he “resolved to know nothing.” The way the Greek is constructed here could suggest that Paul decided before coming to Corinth to sort of “forget” everything except the story of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion.
Do you ever get caught up in intellectual debates about Christianity? I’m not saying that debating is bad, or intellect is bad – but when the focus of the debate is to show how much you know, instead of how much you can know Him – something is wrong.
Good advice – don’t let your intellect crowd out Jesus. And don’t get side-tracked when sharing the gospel with someone. I’ve had many discussions where members of a cult will try to pull the argument into some obscure Scriptural reference that they believe supports their cause. We should always take the debate back to the central issue – the person of Jesus Christ.
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HOPE
Jesus said: John 14:1-4 14:1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
The Foolish Wisdom of God by Tom Fuller
Someone once asked Paul Harvey, the journalist and radio commentator, to reveal the secret of his success. “I get up when I fall down,” said Harvey.
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George MacDonald said, “In whatever man does without God, he must fail miserably or succeed more miserably”
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The Holy Spirit teaches us that human success is ultimately unfufilling. The Lord Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” (Matt. 5:6)
Application: Ask the Lord to help you develop a greater appetite for God’s righteousness, love, purpose, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. He will provide you with more gratificaiton than you can get from anything.
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Quote: To succeed in life you need not only initiative, but also finishiative. Only the Holy Spirit can give what we need both to will and to do of His good pleasure. (Phil. 2:13,14)
Why The Holy Spirit Wants Us To Remember the Limits of Success by Paul Fritz
“Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.” -Isaiah 64:4
Does that verse sound familiar? It should. It’s what Paul is quoting in 1 Corinthians 2:9. The uniqueness of Christianity is a God who serves man, not vice versa. In Mark 10:45, Jesus states that he came not to be served but TO serve.
Rethinking Scripture by ArtisticGrief on Xanga
But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 1 Co 2:7
The wisdom we speak is certainly not ‘the wisdom of this age’; it is God’s wisdom, and the word God is an emphatic position. Secret translates en mysterio, “in a mystery’, where ‘mystery’ does not mean a puzzle we find difficult to solve. It means a secret we are wholly unable to penetrate, but which God has now revealed.
Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, 1 Corinthians. page 54
