Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Spirit-Revealed Wisdom of God: Christ Crucified Beyond the World’s Recognition (1 Corinthians 2:6–13)

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The Spirit-Revealed Wisdom of God: Christ Crucified Beyond the World’s Recognition (1 Corinthians 2:6–13) · Reformed Thinking

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Reformed thinking. Welcome to the deep dive.
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We're here to get into the source material, pull out what
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matters, and make sure you walk away knowing what's what.
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And today, our mission is a close look at a passage that
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really defines where true knowledge comes from.
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First Corinthians chapter 2, verses 6 through 13.
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And for you, the listener, this is well, it's a necessary look
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into the very structure of Revelation.
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We're going to see why God saving wisdom isn't something
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that can be built or earned or figured out by us.
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It's pure revelation, top to bottom.
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To really get the punch of Paul's words here, we have to
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set the scene in Corinth. You need to picture a city that
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was a hub of, well, everything. Trade, political power.
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And this is a key thing, philosophical swagger.
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Corinth was just addicted to status and rhetoric.
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When Paul stood up to speak, the Corinthians weren't just hearing
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the message, they were grading his performance.
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They cared about polished, eloquent, well reasoned
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arguments more than anything. That was their measure of
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Sophia, of Wisdom. And that measure is exactly why
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Paul's message was so, so offensive to them at first.
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I mean, Paul didn't show up with fancy rhetoric.
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He showed up preaching A crucified Messiah, an executed
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criminal. In Roman culture, crucifixion
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wasn't just death. It was the ultimate sign of
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shame, of weakness, of absolute failure.
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So for a Corinthian intellectual, the very idea that
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God's great plan centered on a publicly shamed, executed man,
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it just broke every rule they had about glory and success and
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intelligence. So it's not just a theological
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disagreement, it's a full on cultural collision.
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It's the gap between what Corinthian high society called
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white, you know, worldly success, persuasive talk, and
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what Paul put on the table, weakness on a cross.
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And that collision really sets up our main proposition for this
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deep dive. We're going to follow Paul's
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logic and show why the world's best and brightest failed so
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badly that they actually murdered the Lord of Glory.
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And because of that failure, we are left with no choice but to
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rely completely on the Holy Spirit.
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It's the spirit, then, who does all the work.
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He reveals, he teaches, and he interprets God's wisdom through
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the actual words of Scripture. We'll land on the conclusion
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that true wisdom is a mystery that's been disclosed, not some
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hard puzzle that human genius finally solved.
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OK, let's get into it, starting at verse 6.
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Paul does something really, really clever here.
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He doesn't just throw out the whole idea of wisdom.
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If he did that, he'd lose the Corinthians right away.
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You couldn't. No, instead he accepts the
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category, but then he completely redefines it.
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That move is so critical. Paul knows that to win in
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Corinth he has to claim the word Sophia, wisdom, but then fill it
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with God's content. So he he creates this, this very
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deliberate tension between two systems of knowledge that are
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polar opposites. On one side you have the wisdom
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of this age. Which in the Greek is that
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mouthful? Sophia 2.
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Ionos Tutu. Yes, Sophia 2, Ionos Tutu.
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And this is more than just a few bad ideas.
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It's the whole fallen way of thinking.
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The system and the methods the unregenerate world uses to
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decide what's true, what has value, what counts as success.
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It's a system built on human pride and thinking on your own
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apart from God. And on the other side of that,
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you have the wisdom that actually saves.
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The wisdom of God in a mystery, Sophia and Mysterio.
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This is the wisdom that is totally outside the fallen world
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system. It's an alien wisdom.
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It doesn't come from observation or from philosophical debate.
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It's handed down from heaven. Now Paul says he speaks this
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wisdom among the mature, the Telioi in verse 6.
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And this is a spot where a modern listener and definitely
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an ancient Corinthian could get Paul wrong.
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They might hear mature and think Paul's talking about some kind
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of spiritual elite, you know, a secret club with higher
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knowledge. That historical contest is so
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important because the word telioi was used by Greek
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philosophical schools and mystery cults for the initiated,
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the ones who had gone past the basics to get the secret stuff.
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Paul grabs their word, but he turns its definition completely
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upside down. He's not creating a spiritual
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upper class. Maturity here is not
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sophistication. So how does Paul redefine it?
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What does it mean to be telioi in a Christian sense?
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The mature believer is someone whose whole view of the world
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has been rebuilt by the cross. Their mind, their judgments,
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their values, everything has been submitted to the authority
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of what Christ has revealed. Instead of deciding what's true
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based on the flashy ideas of Corinthian culture, the mature
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believer has adopted a cross checked way of knowing things.
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So maturity is submission not smart.
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It's submission to the revealed truth, not having access to some
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secret code. It's about being a disciple, not
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about having a high spiritual rank.
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And that takes us right to the main idea of this section, the
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biblical mysterion or mystery. Like you said at the start, when
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we hear mystery, we think of a Riddle, a who Doon it that some
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clever detective has to solve. And that's a terrible way to
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read the Bible. If we think of mysterion as a
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Riddle, we assume the point is for us to figure it out, to be
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rewarded for our own brainpower. But the biblical idea is the
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exact opposite. The mysterion isn't a Riddle for
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an elite group. It's not some gnostic secret for
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a few initiated folks. So what does it mean in Paul's
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language? It points to a truth that was
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hidden only in God's eternal plan, tucked away before the
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ages, which means before creation itself.
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It was a truth that was completely out of reach for
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human reason, or even for the prophets in the Old Testament.
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But the key point is that this truth has now been openly
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disclosed, revealed to the Saints.
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It was hidden until God decided to speak, not hidden from
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humanity to test their problem solving skills.
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That changes how you see all of redemptive history.
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It makes the Gospel a huge public announcement that nobody
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could have guessed. Precisely.
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And this is so central to understanding salvation.
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The wisdom of the cross, the idea that God would save people
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through the shameful execution of his Son wasn't available to
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the Old Testament prophets or the Roman rulers or the Jewish
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leaders. But now it's the common property
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of every New Testament believer, whether you're a slave or free,
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an intellectual or illiterate. The gospel isn't a human
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achievement. It's a divine secret that's now
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been made public. Which means God always acts
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first, says first, and speaks first.
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Human wisdom is always just playing catch up.
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And Paul confirms the status of this worldly wisdom in verses
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6:00 and 7:00. He says the wisdom of this age
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and its rulers are doomed to pass away.
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This is a harsh, immediate takedown of human
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self-confidence. The Greek word there is really
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strong. It's not just that they'll end
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eventually, they're literally being brought to nothing.
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Katakumansha worldly confidence isn't just temporary, it's
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already being cancelled out. Yes, it's being made null and
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void by the very event they thought they were controlling
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the cross. Worldly confidence is always
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misplaced because it's entire foundation is temporary.
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It's cut off from the only stable source of truth.
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As Proverbs tells us, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of
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wisdom. This worldly wisdom is cut off
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from that. So what looks powerful and
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impressive and culturally relevant today?
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It's already on its way to the trashy it is.
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And who are these rulers? The are Taunton that Paul talks
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about? It seems like it could mean a
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couple of things, both human and spiritual.
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The term are content is meant to be broad.
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On the most basic historical level, it's definitely pointing
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to the human players. In the crucifixion you've got
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Pilot, the height of Roman imperial power, Herod
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representing corrupt local rule, and Caiaphas, the head of the
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supposedly wise Jewish religious system.
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They all worked together using their combined wisdom to execute
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Jesus. But Paul's theology is rarely
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just about the human level. That's right.
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If you look at his other writings, especially Ephesians,
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Paul consistently says that behind these earthly systems and
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corrupt leaders you find demonic powers, the spiritual forces of
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evil. So the word covers both the
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visible political and religious powers and the invisible
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spiritual forces that run the fallen world.
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It's a complete indictment of the whole chain of command of
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unregenerate power. And this indictment leads to the
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most crushing piece of historical evidence Paul uses to
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prove their failure in verse 8. Their ignorance is the final
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proof of their bankruptcy. It's the ultimate test case.
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Had these rulers, the greatest thinkers, the most powerful men
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of their time, understood God's true wisdom, they would not have
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crucified the Lord of glory. Their collective intelligence,
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their combined power, their strategic thinking, all of it
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led to the single worst crime in the history of the world, the
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murder of God in the flesh. Someone listening today might
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push back and say, well, isn't Paul just creating an easy
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target here? If the Gospel is so obviously
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true, why blame the rulers? Maybe the message was just too
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vague back then. That's a fair question, and it
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forces us to see what their failure really was.
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It wasn't just a lack of information.
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Their failure proves that apart from grace, human beings don't
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just have an information problem, they actively suppress
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the truth. As Romans one says, their wisdom
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wasn't a neutral tool that made a mistake, it was a corrupt
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system that was hostile to God's plan from the start.
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So much so that when the Lord of Glory was standing right in
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front of them, they saw Him as a threat to be eliminated.
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They misidentified him as a disposable criminal.
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And that title, Lord of Glory Carrying Testoxes, just takes
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the irony to another level, doesn't it?
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Oh absolutely. This is one of Paul's highest
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statements about Christ. When he calls Jesus the Lord of
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glory, he is without a doubt giving the Old Testament
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Shekinah glory that manifests glowing presence of God that
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filled the temple. He's giving that to Jesus of
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Nazareth. So the very one they saw as a
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failed, disgraced man, Paul says, is the one who holds all
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divine majesty. Think about that contrast.
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The peak of human power and intellect.
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Looks at Jesus and rags beaten, shame hanging on a cross, the
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picture of weakness. And yet Paul says this is the
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Lord of glory. The event they intended to
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destroy him with was actually God's predetermined plan to
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glorify him and defeat them. A paradox.
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Glory through weakness. And that paradox is completely
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invisible to the natural mind. It requires a whole new way of
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seeing. The crucifixion, then, is the
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great unmasking. It's the moment worldly wisdom
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took center stage, gave its best shot, and was judged a total
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failure. It wasn't just a historical
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accident. It was the inevitable result of
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a deep, fatal flaw in human reasoning on its own.
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And Paul explains why that failure was inevitable in verse
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9. Verse 9 is so famous, but it
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gets misused all the time. You hear it quoted at funerals
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or in sentimental songs about heaven.
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What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man
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imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him.
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And we have to tie that verse back to its context.
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Paul is not giving us a fuzzy, sentimental picture of paradise
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here. He is making a very sober,
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specific point about revelation and human inability.
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After showing that the rulers failed to get it, he's now
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explaining the systemic reason why they failed the gospel.
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God's hidden wisdom is not something human beings can get
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to on their own. Let's break down the three tools
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he says fail eye, ear and heart. The eye and the ear, or external
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ways of getting information. The eye is empirical data, what
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you can see and measure. The ear is tradition, inherited
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knowledge, what you're taught in schools, and the heart.
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The heart is all our internal faculties, our reason, our
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imagination, our ability to think and feel and desire.
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Paul is covering all the bases. He's saying, look, if you take
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all of it, all your senses, all of human tradition, all the
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brain power humanity can summon, you still cannot find your way
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into God's plan of salvation. You can't even imagine it.
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This lands us right on that key theological idea, the noetic
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effects of sin, the way sin messes with our minds.
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Absolutely. The problem is so much deeper
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than just not having enough information.
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Yeah, the human mind itself is compromised.
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It's disordered. It's hostile toward God.
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That's why Roman says humanity suppresses the truth.
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Our unaided ability just can't grasp spiritual reality.
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The cross proved it. The world's wisest people looked
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at glory and called it foolishness.
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And then they killed it. So the door is locked and every
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key human intellect can make just doesn't fit the lock.
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That's a perfect way to put it. The lock is spiritual.
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It can't be picked by natural means.
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And this establishes a huge principle.
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Salvation isn't a human discovery.
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It's not a prize for good thinking.
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It's a gift that has to be given.
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OK, so if human reason is locked out, if I ear and heart can't
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climb up as verse 9 says, we get to the great reversal in verse
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10. If we can't get to God, God has
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to come down to us. Verse 10 is the absolute pivot
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of Paul's argument. These things God has revealed to
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us through the Spirit. Wisdom is not discovered by
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human effort, it is disclosed by divine grace.
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The whole argument turns on this because the gospel is
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unreachable by our own means. God's sovereign, gracious self
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disclosure is the only path forward.
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And Paul immediately ties this disclosure to the Spirit's
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unique ability, he says. For the Spirit searches
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everything, even the depths of God.
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Bethe Tootheo. This is where we see just how
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necessary the Holy Spirit is. He's the only bridge.
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And look at the language here that the depths of God, bethe
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tootheo isn't just about facts. It's about God's infinite,
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unsearchable, eternal wisdom. His plans, His purposes, His
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very being. These are the depths that just
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crush the natural man. Now the verb he uses, Iruna
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searches, is interesting. If the Spirit is God, how can he
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search anything? Doesn't that sort of imply he's
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learning something new? That's a really sharp
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observation and it needs a careful answer.
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We shouldn't think of Areuna as a search for something lost,
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like the Spirit is an investigator looking for a file.
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Since the Spirit is God, He is omniscient.
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Instead, the word is used here to describe the spirits
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exhaustive, intimate, all knowing communion with the
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Father. It highlights his divine
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competence. He ranges freely and fully
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through the infinite reality of God's mind.
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So the grammar itself gives us a really strong case for the deity
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of the Holy Spirit. He isn't a created messenger,
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He's one with the Father in his very being and knowledge.
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Exactly, and that divine competence is what makes the
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revelation reliable. When the Spirit reveals the
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depths of God, there's no mistake, no distortion, no
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second hand report. He knows God's mind perfectly
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because he is God's own Spirit. This connects back to that deep
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sea diary illustration we were talking about before.
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Yes, that analogy really helps show the difference between our
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inability and God's provision. The depths of God are like the
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Marianas Trench, an environment of infinite holiness and truth
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that the natural human mind just can't enter.
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Worldly wisdom is the guy trying to go down by holding his
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breath. He gets instantly crushed by the
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pressure. So to survive that trip into
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God's mind, you need a totally foreign divine piece of
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equipment. You need the pressurized suit
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and the oxygen line. The Holy Spirit is that divine
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equipment. He allows the creature, the
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apostle, the believer to enter the mind of the Creator without
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being destroyed. This just reinforces the whole
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point. Only the Spirit is native, the
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depths of God. The rest of us are just invited
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guests there by grace. And Paul makes this so
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understandable in verse 11 with that great analogy about human
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personality. It's a perfect analogy for who
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knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person which
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is in him. So also no one comprehends the
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thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
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I can watch you, listen to you, try to guess your motives, but I
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can never truly know your private inner thoughts unless
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you choose to tell me. Right.
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And if that barrier exists between two finite people, how
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much bigger is the barrier between a creature and the
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infinite creator? It's an infinite chasm.
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God is not some object we can put under a microscope.
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He's the sovereign Lord who must choose to speak, to disclose his
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own mind, if we're ever going to know him in a saving way.
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And this guarantees the reliability of what the Spirit?
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Which brings us back to the failure of the rulers in verse
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8. Their failure really was
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inevitable. Then they just didn't have the
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right equipment. Exactly.
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They were trying to understand an infinite God with finite
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fallen human tools. True theology, Paul is arguing,
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has to be received with humility, not invented with
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pride. Now we should be really precise
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here about the US, and God has revealed them to us.
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The Spirit shines a light for all believers.
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But the foundational act of revelation Paul is talking about
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here seems to be specifically for the apostles.
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This is a critical theological distinction.
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It protects the church, the foundational content of the
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mystery. The gospel message itself was
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given in a unique way to the apostles.
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They were tasked with laying the doctrinal foundation of the
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faith, as Paul says in Ephesians 2, with Christ as the
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cornerstone. And why is that distinction so
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important for us today? Because it protects the church
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from 2 huge historical errors. First, it pushes back against
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the error of modern enthusiasm, which looks for subjective,
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private revelations. You know, whispers from the Lord
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that often end up competing with or overriding the biblical text.
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If the foundational revelation was delivered by the apostles,
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then we look there for truth. We're talking about the
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sufficiency of the closed Canon of scripture.
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Absolutely. The Spirit's work in this
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specific sense was to unveil the mystery once and for all and get
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it into the written record. We don't expect a constant
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stream of new messages that make the Bible obsolete.
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His ongoing work is to apply and illuminate that established
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truth for us, not to generate new truth.
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OK, so we've established the spirits exclusive access and
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perfect knowledge. Now Paul moves to the delivery
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system. How this divine knowledge gets
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from the apostles to the believers and to the world?
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Verse 12 is that transition. It's about the purpose of the
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Spirit being given to the believer.
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And Paul sets up another stark contrast the spirit of the
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world, which judges everything by human applause and cultural
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trends, versus the Spirit who is from God.
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And the Spirit, who is from God is given for a very specific,
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sober purpose, that we might understand the things freely
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given us by God. It's a beautiful line about the
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scope of grace. The Spirit isn't given mainly
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for religious experiences or emotional highs.
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He is given for cognitive clarity, for knowledge and
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understanding. He gives us the ability to
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receive spiritual truth. And the word Paul uses here is
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key. Karasthenta freely given or
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graciously bestowed. The use of Karasinta just seems
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to destroy any idea of earning our salvation.
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It completely demolishes it. Paul is teaching that the stuff
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of salvation, Christ and all his benefits, is freely given.
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But even more than that, the understanding of salvation, the
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very ability to grasp what God has done, is also a gift of
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sovereign grace. The natural man could never get
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there on his own, so God graciously gives him the
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ability. So if everything we know and the
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ability to know it are both gifts, then there's absolutely
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no room for human boasting. None at all.
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The Spirit's work doesn't puff up our intellectual pride.
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It gets rid of it and pushes us toward deep gratitude.
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We don't understand because we're smart.
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We understand because the Spirit gave us spiritual eyes.
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That sets us up perfectly for verse 13, which is really the
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climax of the whole argument. Paul moves from the internal
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truth to the external means of communication, the actual words
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he uses. This verse is the bedrock for
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what we call the doctrine of verbal plenary inspiration, Paul
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says. And we impart this in words not
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taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit.
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He's directly challenging the Corinthian obsession with
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eloquent speeches. He's arguing that the authority
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of what the apostles say doesn't come from their skill as
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speakers, it comes from the Spirit taught speech.
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Why is the focus on words logos matter so much?
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I mean, couldn't the Spirit just give the apostles the general
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ideas and let them fill in the blanks?
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Because if the Spirit only gave the concepts, the message would
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get contaminated by human weakness and by the distortion
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of the wisdom of this age. Paul's whole point has been that
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the natural man, even a brilliant philosopher, can't
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grasp the things of God. So the inspired communication
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has to protect the precision of the message.
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The Spirit provides not just the vague ideas, but the precise
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language needed to express infinite spiritual truths
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accurately and finite human words.
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So the Bible isn't a human approximation of a divine
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experience, it's a fully reliable, divinely precise
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statement. Absolutely.
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Think of that military frequency illustration again.
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The message is encrypted spiritual reality.
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You can't decode it with human brain power.
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The Holy Spirit provides the content, and then He provides
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the specific Spirit taught words the perfect linguistic package
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to deliver that content accurately.
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This guarantees that the message the apostle received is exactly
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the message the Father intended to send.
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Paul is basically saying that the wisdom he speaks is as
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foreign to human rhetoric as the cross was to Corinthian pride.
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He is. He's systematically tearing down
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the Corinthian standard of judging truth by how good it
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sounds. Real authority comes from the
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source, not the sales pitch. And that brings us to that
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famous phrase at the end of verse 13, which has so much
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theological weight, pneumaticoise pneumatica,
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synchronantes. How do we impact that debated
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line? The key is the verb
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synchronantes, which can mean combining, comparing, or
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interpreting. The debate is mostly about the
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gender of the two new Montaqui words.
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Is it masculine, meaning, interpreting spiritual truths to
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spiritual men? Or is it neuter meaning
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combining spiritual truths with spiritual words?
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And given the context, which reading fits better with Paul's
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argument about words not taught by human wisdom?
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The neuter reading, combining spiritual truths with spiritual
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words, is just a much better fit.
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It flows perfectly from the rest of the verse.
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Paul has just been hammering the point about the source of the
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communication spirit taught and the means of communication
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words. It would be strange for him to
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suddenly switch topics to the audience's ability to
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understand. So the theological peak is that
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there's a perfect match. Spiritual realities are clothed
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in spiritual language. That's the result.
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Our confidence rests completely on the inspired authority of the
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text itself. The Bible is the product of the
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Spirit translating the infinite depths of God into specific,
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precise, authoritative human language.
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This process guarantees that we're not just reading human
21:57
opinions about God. We are handling the very
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thoughts of God transcribed by God Himself.
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Let's just pause on that for a second.
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If the Scripture is viewed as being dictated by the Spirit,
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down to the specific words, that sits a standard of authority
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that's absolute. It doesn't leave any room for us
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to correct it with our own reason.
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It locks down authority entirely outside of human systems.
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Think about the difference between Paul's approach and,
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say, a stoke philosopher in Corinth.
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The stoke teacher might give general concepts and hope his
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students get the gist and apply it with their own reason.
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Paul says no. The content is so alien, so
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deep, that I have to use the exact words the Spirit gives me
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or the message gets lost. The authority is in the text,
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not in the speaker's skill. The Corinthians wanted a
22:41
charismatic speaker who can move them, Paul says.
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I'm giving you something way more reliable than that.
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I'm giving you the Spirit's own language.
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And that is a revolutionary and a humbling thing to say.
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It means that the simplest, least educated believer who
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trusts the Spirit and submits to the inspired words of Scripture
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has access to a greater, more certain wisdom than the most
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decorated, unregenerate professor who hates the cross.
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The flow is just airtight from our total inability in verse 9
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to the Spirit's perfect knowledge in verse 10, to the
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specific authority of Spirit taught words in verse 13.
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It demands a complete realignment of our thinking.
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And pulse theology is never just abstract.
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It always demands that we change how we think, how we feel, and
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how we act. This divine wisdom has to take
23:25
over our head, our heart and our hands.
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Let's start with the head. What we have to believe
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intellectually. This teaching requires a really
23:33
solid, unflinching submission to verbal plenary inspiration.
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This is where it gets practical for you, the listener.
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Right. And submitting your mind here
23:41
builds a wall against two powerful errors that are always
23:44
threatening the church. The first is theological
23:47
liberalism, which sees the Bible as containing errors or as just
23:51
a flawed human record of religious ideas.
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Paul just wrecks that view by insisting the apostle spoke in
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words, logo a given by the Spirit.
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And the second error is almost the opposite of that, a kind of
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mysticism. Yes, a mysticism that's always
24:05
looking for new private subjective revelations, personal
24:08
feelings or whispers from God that end up pushing the written
24:12
word to the side. But since the Spirit's work of
24:14
foundational revelation is done, and he perfectly communicated
24:18
the depths of God through the apostles words, we have to stand
24:21
on the absolute sufficiency of scripture.
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We don't need new whispers, we need spiritual eyes to see the
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deep things of God that are already in the text.
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This submission also means we have to accept the doctrine of
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total depravity as it affects our intellect, those noetic
24:36
effects of sin. The natural man Paul talks about
24:39
a little later in verse 14 isn't necessarily an uneducated man.
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He could be a brilliant Roman sin or a sophisticated
24:44
philosopher. The problem isn't a lack of
24:47
data. He's spiritually dead without
24:49
the Holy Spirit's work. The most brilliant secular
24:51
thinker is blinder to saving truth than the simplest believer
24:55
who trusts Christ. This truth just shatters
24:58
intellectual elitism. OK, now moving to the heart.
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What we should love and feel good doctrine has to produce
25:06
holy affections. I mean, if we really believe
25:09
that the smartest, most powerful men in history failed so badly
25:13
that they crucified the Lord of glory, that has to produce a
25:17
deep and lasting humility in US. Humility is the only right
25:20
response. We're Christians not because we
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were smarter or more perceptive than our neighbors.
25:25
We're Christians because God, in an act of sovereign, gracious
25:28
revelation, revealed them to us through His Spirit.
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That realization has to lead to an overwhelming sense of
25:34
gratitude and awe. God didn't have to share His
25:37
hidden wisdom with us. And yet he did so much more than
25:40
just share it. He prepared unimaginable glories
25:43
for those who love him. This should translate into a
25:45
real reference. Every time we open the
25:47
Scriptures. We're not handling just another
25:49
book. We are dealing with words that
25:50
reflect the very mind of Christ. As Paul will say in verse 16,
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that posture of awe has to displace any casual or bored
25:57
attitude toward the written word.
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If these are the thoughts of God, we have to approach them
26:01
expecting to meet God there. And finally, the hands.
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What we must do. This truth has to lead to
26:07
action, specifically in how we do ministry and how we live our
26:11
lives. For anyone in ministry, this
26:13
text is a clear mandate for expository preaching.
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If the real authority is in the words taught by the Spirit, then
26:20
the main job of the preacher is to explain those specific words
26:23
in their context. You have to trust the divine
26:26
text itself to do the work. So this gives us a theological
26:29
reason to reject the kind of pragmatism you see in some
26:31
churches that relies on worldly marketing or entertainment to
26:35
get results. Manipulation just isn't
26:37
ministry. We have to resist that
26:39
temptation to edit the Bible, to soften its hard edges, to make
26:42
it fit the culture. The job is to unleash the
26:44
inspired text and let the Spirit who wrote the words use the
26:48
words to do his work. And for the believer, the
26:50
listener, what does this look like day-to-day?
26:52
It means diligent, hard study. Since God communicated in
26:57
specific Spirit taught words, we have to work hard in those
27:01
words. We have to compare Scripture
27:02
with Scripture. That Synchronauti's idea
27:04
trusting the Spirit to give us understanding not through some
27:07
sudden ZAP of inspiration, but through patient, humble work
27:11
with the text. This passage also gives us a
27:14
critical filter for looking at any attempt to bring outside
27:17
secular ideas into how the church operates or diagnosis the
27:21
human problem. It does.
27:22
Paul has set up this absolute opposition between the wisdom of
27:26
this age and the wisdom of God, and the source material
27:29
instructs us to guard against secular ideologies, things like
27:32
certain applications of critical race theory or secular social
27:34
justice movements. Yeah.
27:36
And since we're committed to impartial reporting, let's be
27:38
clear on how the source material sees this tension.
27:40
The source material sees these frameworks as relying on worldly
27:43
ways of measuring things, worldly analytical tools, the
27:47
wisdom of this age to define and diagnose the human problem,
27:50
whether it's oppression or inequality.
27:53
The claim is that these systems operate without relying on the
27:56
sufficient Word of God. Paul in this chapter argues that
27:59
the Word of God alone gives the true spirit taught diagnosis,
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depravity, hostility to God, and the only cure, Christ crucified.
28:08
So these external systems are seen as part of the same system
28:11
the rulers used to crucify Christ, the wisdom that is
28:14
doomed to pass away. That's how the source material
28:17
positions it. The application, then, is to
28:19
maintain the purity of the diagnosis, trusting that the
28:22
spirits revealed Words are the only tool we need to understand
28:25
reality. We keep our hands busy holding
28:27
the telescope of Scripture, not the mirror of worldly approval.
28:31
Let's bring back that military frequency analogy one more time
28:34
to really drive home why even most sophisticated worldly
28:37
wisdom always misses the point. That analogy makes it so clear
28:40
why the natural man can't get it.
28:42
God's wisdom is like a secure, encrypted broadcast.
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The rulers of this age, the highly educated, the media, the
28:49
unregenerate thinkers, are like massive supercomputers.
28:53
They have all this processing power, they can analyze tons of
28:55
data, but they're trying to crack the code with brute force.
29:00
They pick up the signal, but to them it just sounds like static,
29:02
so they call it foolishness. And they completely miss the
29:06
lifesaving message. They hear the noise and conclude
29:08
there's no message there at all. Exactly.
29:10
But the humble believer has been given by grace the one thing the
29:13
supercomputers don't have the correct decoding key, which is
29:17
the Holy Spirit. The believer might not have the
29:19
raw processing power, but because they have the key,
29:22
revelation and illumination, they hear the commander's voice
29:25
clearly. It shows why the rulers failed
29:27
and why simple faith succeeds. Access, not acuity, is what
29:32
matter. That distinction, access versus
29:34
acuity, just perfectly sums up the whole argument of First
29:37
Corinthians 2. It's a complete reversal of what
29:39
we would expect. The logical chain Paul builds is
29:41
just stunning. Man is blind in verse 9, so God
29:45
must speak in verse 10, and he must speak in perfect, precise
29:48
words in verse 13. The result is a church that is
29:51
both incredibly humbled because we didn't climb up to God, and
29:55
supremely confident because God has graciously come down to us,
29:58
not just in the person of Christ, but in the specific
30:00
words of his revelation. We've seen the choice laid out,
30:04
the fading dark wisdom of this age which is doomed to fail,
30:07
versus the eternal shining wisdom of God.
30:11
For all their power, the rulers of this age were walking
30:13
straight off a Cliff, blind to the Lord of glory who died to
30:16
save them. And that invitation is still
30:19
here for us today, just like it was for the Corinthians.
30:21
The invitation is to abandon intellectual arrogance.
30:24
It's an invitation to cling only to the scandal of Christ
30:27
crucified. Don't let the world's
30:29
skepticism, or it's the definition of success, bully
30:31
you. You possess the very thoughts of
30:33
God transcribed by the Spirit and the Scriptures you hold.
30:36
That is a glory that you can't measure.
30:38
So since God has communicated in specific spirit, taught words
30:41
that carry the very depths of God, what should your posture be
30:45
every single time you open the Bible?
30:48
It means approaching Scripture not as just another historical
30:51
book or something for abstract thought, but as a deep sea diver
30:54
entering the infinite depths of God's counsel.
30:57
It means expecting the Holy Spirit, who alone knows those
31:00
depths, to give you light and understanding of what God has so
31:03
freely given. And that posture shouldn't just
31:05
end with gathering information. It has to result in staggering
31:08
worship of the Author who chose to share his deepest secrets
31:11
with those who love him. Go from here just amazed at the
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privilege that you by grace have been given the mind of Christ.