City Life Starter

Start with the Word

Devotional for June 2nd, 2018

The Word: 1 Corinthians 2:9-16

However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,
    what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
    the things God has prepared for those who love him—

these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 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. 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. 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. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for,

“Who has known the mind of the Lord
    so as to instruct him?”

But we have the mind of Christ.

Isaiah 40:13-14

Who can fathom the Spirit of the Lord,
    or instruct the Lord as his counselor?


Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him,
    and who taught him the right way?
Who was it that taught him knowledge,
    or showed him the path of understanding?

Reflection Questions:

1. Compare 1 Corinthians 2:16, above, with Isaiah 40:13. Ask yourself, have you ever thought yourself to be so brilliant and so sophisticated, that you don’t need the Lord’s guiding wisdom in your life? Better yet, ask yourself the question posed in these 2 verses.

2. Can God teach you the deep things by His Spirit, or do you often resist Him? Remember that He will not force Himself on you.

By Jason Schezer

Corinth (Korinthos) was a Greek “City-State” just west of Athens, that started to become a commercial center roughly 800 years before Christ. It was an extremely fortified city that rose several hundred feet above the sea, and was situated next to an isthmus, or narrow piece of land surrounded by the sea, but connecting 2 larger areas of land. This made the city a perfect spot for trade routes. It had a population of about 500,000 people and was extremely well known throughout the world.

Corinth tried to defy the expansion of Rome, but could not hold out, and a Roman general destroyed Corinth in 146 BC. Then, Julius Caesar reestablished it about 100 years later as a Roman colony. Corinth had made itself wealthy by charging tolls to haul ships overland, to cross from one sea to the other, before there was a canal. It was an amazingly beautiful city of Greek architecture, of which much has been destroyed. It was also a center of the worship of gods and godesses, including temple prostitutes.

Being a rather large city, deeply rooted in the ancient Greek worldview, Corinth presented a tremendous challenge for Paul and his companions to establish and maintain a church. A church in name only might not be too challenging, but a thoroughly Christ-centered church in the middle of a city of paganism, was almost insurmountable.
Paul brought the riches of the knowledge of God to bear upon the tremendous problems that emerged in the church at Corinth. There was one universal Church and one unchangeable Gospel which was delivered to the apostles, and Paul fought hard to ensure that his church at Corinth would remain faithful to the truth of the Gospel.
Paul received some very troubling reports about his church at Corinth during his third missionary journey. He had to address these problems in his letter to them. We may tend to think that the people of the early Church must have been absolute saints and quite holy. However, the Corinth church was actually very divided, and spiritual discipline was quite pathetic. They even treated the LORD’s supper, a holy sacrament, with careless contempt and disregard for poor people. Paul was an apostle, directly appointed by Jesus, yet the Corinth church leaders were hardly following his instructions at all.
Paul begins 1 Corinthians chapter 2 by reminding his church at Corinth that he did not trust in his own human wisdom and skill when he preached the gospel to them. Instead, he depended upon God and a real demonstration of the Spirit’s power; Paul left space for God to move. Does it ever make all the difference! Verse 9 shows that noone on this earth has even begun to imagine the depth of riches that God is preparing for His people in heaven. No eye has seen, and no ear has heard of these blessings. It is true, however, that Paul was “caught up to the 3rd heaven,” which he wrote about. He saw unimaginable glory, yet God did not allow him to write about it.
V. 10: “these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit…” Paul is teaching that if we would know anything of God and His Kingdom, it must be learned spiritually, through the Spirit. Human wisdom seems adequate to unspiritual people, but it is not to any eternal benefit. Human wisdom is obviously sophisticated, and although it can produce self-confidence, eventually leads to pride, self-absorption, arrogance, and rebellion against God. Spiritual wisdom seeks Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man who holds all spiritual perfection.
 
Paul goes on to explain in verse 11 that we cannot comprehend God, or know Him personally, without the knowledge of God being imparted to us by His Spirit. The Spirit is the only way. He can be grieved, resisted, and ignored to our malnourishment, or He can be welcomed and invited to share the deep mysteries of God with us. The latter is that for which we were designed and created.
 
Paul is trying, in some very spiritual language, to whet the appetite of the Corinth readers, who had forgotten about Paul’s previous preaching and neglected the message of God. They knew the message that Paul had given them, but they had become divided, self seeking, and distracted by the availability of countless idols that permeated Hellenistic society in Corinth. In chapter 3, which we will soon be exploring, we will see that Paul had not been able to speak to the Corinthians as spiritual people. He had to resort to treating them as spiritual infants; people who know virtually nothing of the things of God. So the people in the Corinth church are mostly no better than those who nailed Jesus to a Roman cross to die. They are unable to grasp spiritual matters. 
 
Psalm 92:5-8 reads: “How great are your works, Lord, how profound your thoughts! Senseless people do not know, fools do not understand, that though the wicked spring up like grass and all evildoers flourish, they will be destroyed forever. But you, LORD, are forever exalted.” There is really no comparison between the depth of God’s thoughts and the lack of depth of (unspiritual) man’s thoughts.

Paul had every right to expect spiritual maturity in Corinth. The apostle himself had established the church, and had lived and taught in Corinth for a year and a half, according to Acts 18:11. He comes to them again in this letter, not giving up on them, but firmly pressing the uncomfortable point that they have become divided, unspiritual, and worldly.

Application:

Seek to excel in spiritual matters, keeping always in your mind that Christ is the Head of all things. He ascended to the right hand of God after He was resurrected, which was necessary so that He could give the gift of the Holy Spirit. Spiritual knowledge does not come from the human heart, by any means. The heart of man is deceitful, desperately wicked, dishonest. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:23 tells us.

If you have been an “infant” spiritually, it is time to grow. If you have spiritual pride of the sort that puffs up, confess it to God and let Him deal graciously yet firmly with you.

Have you been able to hear from God about the mysteries of His glory, that He only reveals to those who love Him? You must be tuned in to His Spirit to hear from Him. The goal is spiritual growth, not infancy, and to attain to be like Christ.

Prayer: 

LORD, I cannot understand Your glorious mysteries until You open my heart and speak to me. Let my heart be changed by You. I want to see Your glory and goodness. Let me be useful to You and able to receive the gifts of the Spirit, so that I may be a blessing to others. In Jesus’ name.

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