Today the Apostle Paul talks about how God teaches His children through the Holy Spirit.
"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---those are the things God has revealed to us by His Spirit." (1 Corinthians 2:9-10a) Paul quotes from Isaiah 64:4, paraphrasing it a bit, for Isaiah says, "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." Bible scholar William Barclay makes an interesting point about what Paul says, "These words are usually thought of as suggesting heaven and the glories of the future world, but Paul did not hesitate to apply them here to what God has already done for His children." I had never thought of this verse in that way, but it's true that God is already revealing things to us in the here and now that we never knew or understood until we accepted Christ.
"The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God." (1 Corinthians 2:10b) Jesus promised His disciples during the Last Supper, "But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you." (John 14:26) If we are in Christ we have the Holy Spirit, and He helps us understand the Scriptures and He helps us understand the Lord's will.
"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." (1 Corinthians 2:11-12) Our own human spirit interprets our thoughts for us, and the Holy Spirit interprets God's thoughts for us. The Spirit doesn't tell us every thought of God, for I think His mind is so much higher than ours that we couldn't take it. But the Spirit instructs us, directs us, and comforts us on behalf of God.
"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." (1 Corinthians 2:13) Paul says something like, "We don't preach a gospel made up by man. We don't preach the gospel in our own power. We preach the gospel by the revelation and the power of the Holy Spirit."
"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." (1 Corinthians 2:14) Paul uses the Greek word "psuchikos" for the person without the Spirit. That word means a person who lives only for the here and now and who does not think beyond what the human spirit desires to have on this earth. A person in such a state doesn't want to waste time reading the Bible or attending church or listening to Christian music. A person in such a state is carnally minded. And we all were like this, to one degree or another, before we came to know Christ. We lived for ourselves, not for the Lord.
"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." (1 Corinthians 2:15-16) Paul quotes from a passage in Isaiah 40 where Isaiah extols the vast wisdom of God. Isaiah asks, "Who can fathom the Spirit of the Lord?" God the Son can fathom the Spirit of God the Father, and He reveals some of this wisdom to those who belong to Him through God the Holy Spirit. The only way we can truly understand spiritual matters is to have the Spirit of God within us. And the only way to have the Spirit of God within us is to have Christ.
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