New International Version NIV
The Message Bible MSG
1 And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about 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 resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ 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 came to you in weakness with great fear and 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 message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s 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 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
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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 do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, 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feet on firm spiritual ground, but it's not popular wisdom, the fashionable wisdom of high-priced experts that will be out-of-date in a year or so.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 No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.
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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 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not 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 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—
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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 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even 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 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.
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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 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.
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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 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.
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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 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.
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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 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,
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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 so as to instruct him?”But we have the mind of Christ.
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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.
Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica. All rights reserved worldwide.
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.