2 1 And when I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of our Father with lofty words or wisdom. 2 For I resolved to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3 And I came to you in weakness, in fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not delivered with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Holy Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom but on the power of our Father.
6 Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No, we speak the wisdom of our Father, a mystery that has been hidden, which our Father destined before time began for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But as it is written: "What no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human heart has conceived — these things our Father has prepared for those who love him."
10 But our Father has revealed them to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of our Father. 11 For who knows a person's thoughts except that person's own spirit within them? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of our Father except the Spirit of our Father. 12 Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from our Father, so that we may understand what our Father has freely given us. 13 And this is what we speak, not in words taught by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities to those who are spiritual. 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of our Father, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are discerned spiritually. a a v14 Literally 'the natural person' — one who does not possess or submit to the Holy Spirit. 15 The person who is spiritual discerns all things, but is himself subject to no one's judgment. 16 For "who has known the mind of our Father, that he should instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.