Hebrew Names Version HNV
The Message Bible MSG
1 When I came to you, brothers, I didn't come with excellence of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.
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You'll remember, friends, that when I first came to you to let you in on God's master stroke, I didn't try to impress you with polished speeches and the latest philosophy.
2 For I determined not to know anything among you, except Yeshua the Messiah, and him crucified.
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I deliberately kept it plain and simple: first Jesus and who he is; then Jesus and what he did - Jesus crucified.
3 I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling.
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I was unsure of how to go about this, and felt totally inadequate - I was scared to death, if you want the truth of it -
4 My speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
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and so nothing I said could have impressed you or anyone else. But the Message came through anyway. God's Spirit and God's power did it,
5 that your faith wouldn't stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
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which made it clear that your life of faith is a response to God's power, not to some fancy mental or emotional footwork by me or anyone else.
6 We speak wisdom, however, among those who are full grown; yet a wisdom not of this world, nor of the rulers of this world, who are coming to nothing.
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We, of course, have plenty of wisdom to pass on to you once you get your feet on firm spiritual ground, but it's not popular wisdom, the fashionable wisdom of high-priced experts that will be out-of-date in a year or so.
7 But we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom that has been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds to our glory,
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God's wisdom is something mysterious that goes deep into the interior of his purposes. You don't find it lying around on the surface. It's not the latest message, but more like the oldest - what God determined as the way to bring out his best in us, long before we ever arrived on the scene.
8 which none of the rulers of this world has known. For had they known it, they wouldn't have crucified the Lord of glory.
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The experts of our day haven't a clue about what this eternal plan is. If they had, they wouldn't have killed the Master of the God-designed life on a cross.
9 But as it is written, "Things which eye didn't see, and ear didn't hear, Which didn't enter into the heart of man, Whatever things God prepared for those who love him."
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That's why we have this Scripture text: No one's ever seen or heard anything like this, Never so much as imagined anything quite like it - What God has arranged for those who love him.
10 But to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. For the spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
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But you've seen and heard it because God by his Spirit has brought it all out into the open before you.
11 For who among men knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man, which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God, except God's Spirit.
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Who ever knows what you're thinking and planning except you yourself? The same with God - except that he not only knows what he's thinking,
12 But we received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that were freely given to us by God.
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but he lets us in on it. God offers a full report on the gifts of life and salvation that he is giving us.
13 Which things also we speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Ruach HaKodesh teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things.
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We don't have to rely on the world's guesses and opinions. We didn't learn this by reading books or going to school; we learned it from God, who taught us person-to-person through Jesus, and we're passing it on to you in the same firsthand, personal way.
14 Now the natural man doesn't receive the things of the God's Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and he can't know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
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The unspiritual self, just as it is by nature, can't receive the gifts of God's Spirit. There's no capacity for them. They seem like so much silliness. Spirit can be known only by spirit - God's Spirit and our spirits in open communion.
15 But he who is spiritual discerns all things, and he himself is judged by no one.
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Spiritually alive, we have access to everything God's Spirit is doing, and can't be judged by unspiritual critics.
16 "For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct him?" But we have Messiah's mind.
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Isaiah's question, "Is there anyone around who knows God's Spirit, anyone who knows what he is doing?" has been answered: Christ knows, and we have Christ's Spirit.
The Hebrew Names Version is in the public domain.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.