(Tap footnote to read it. Old Testament quotations are underlined. "Love" with a caret ("^love") is agapé.1"agapé" The Greek words ἀγάπη (agapé, noun), and ἀγαπάω (agapaó; verb) are typically translated "love". However, unlike our English word "love" – which primarily speaks of affection and feelings – agapé centers on choice and behavior. It’s the "love" based on will, choice, behavior, and action; not feelings. (Feelings-based love is the Greek word φιλέω (phileó), which properly means "brotherly love/affection".) Thus, you could hate someone passionately and still treat him with "agapé". Agapé "love" is best understood as the pursuit of what is most beneficial to someone or something, regardless of the cost to yourself or the type of response received from the person or thing. It can also indicate a preference for someone or something over other things. )
God’s Wisdom (Continued)
- And having come to you brothers, I didn’t come with excellent speech or wisdom; I came proclaiming the testimony of God to you.
- For I decided not to know anything among you except Jesus the Anointed, and that He has been crucified.
- And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.
- And my word and my preaching weren’t in persuasive words of wisdom; but in a demonstration1“demonstration” the Greek word here means to demonstrate something as proof of something else. of the Spirit and of power,
- so your faith wouldn’t be in men’s wisdom, but in God’s power.
- Now, we do speak wisdom among the mature; but not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, the men who come to nothing.2“come to nothing” The Greek word here refers to rendering something completely inactive or inert, so it’s without force, ability or power; to do away with something completely.
- But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery which has been hidden; which God predestined before the ages for our glory,
- which none of the rulers of this age has understood. For if they had understood it, they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory.
- But just as it is *written; “which the eye didn’t see, and the ear didn’t hear, and it didn’t enter3literally “sprung up” or “arisen” into the heart of man how much God prepared for the men who ^love Him.”
- For God revealed them to us through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.
- For who among men *knows the depths of the man, except the man’s spirit within him? And likewise, no man *knows the depths of God, except the Spirit of God.
- But we didn’t receive the spirit of the world, but the Spirit from God, so we might have known the things which were graced to us by God.
- Things of which we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit interpreting4“interpreting” This Greek word has the root meaning of “judging together”, with the idea of putting two things together and comparing them, which leads to a proper understanding of what’s being compared. Thus it can be translated as combine, compare, or interpret depending on the context. spiritual things with spiritual wisdom.
- But the natural man doesn’t welcome the things of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to him and he isn’t able to understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
- But the spiritual man discerns all things, but he is discerned by no one.
- For who understood the Lord’s mind? Who will instruct Him?5Quotation/allusion to Isaiah 40:13 But we have the mind of the Anointed.
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