Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: 1 Corinthians 2
Key Verse
1 Corinthians 2:9 — “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”
Devotional Thought
Paul had planted the church in Corinth, a bustling port city crowded with merchants, philosophers, and rival teachers who competed for attention with polished rhetoric and impressive credentials. When Paul first arrived there, he deliberately set aside the kind of performance that Corinth admired. He did not come with “excellency of speech or of wisdom,” he tells them, but resolved to know nothing among them “save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” He even admits he was with them “in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling” — hardly the resume of a celebrated orator. Yet that weakness was the point. The faith of the Corinthians was not to rest on the cleverness of a man but on “the power of God.”
Paul then draws back the curtain on something vast. The wisdom he preached was not invented in Corinth or Athens; it was “ordained before the world” and hidden in God, a mystery the rulers of this age failed to grasp. Had they understood it, “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” Here is the stunning irony at the center of the gospel: the cross, which looked like the defeat of a troublemaker from Galilee, was actually the hidden wisdom of God accomplishing salvation. And this wisdom is not discovered by human brilliance. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him” — but God has revealed them “by his Spirit.”
That word “revealed” carries the whole difference between two kinds of people in this chapter. The “natural man” — the person relying on human reason and the spirit of the world alone — receives the things of God as foolishness, because they are “spiritually discerned.” But the believer has received “the spirit which is of God,” and so can begin to know “the things that are freely given to us of God.” Paul ends with an astonishing claim: “we have the mind of Christ.” Not that we become Christ, but that His Spirit teaches us to see reality the way He does.
In the deep of winter, when the days are short and the world feels stripped bare, this chapter is a quiet word about where true understanding comes from. We are not left to squint at God from a distance, guessing at His purposes with only our own wits. He has given His Spirit. The things He has prepared for those who love Him are not merely waiting in the future — they are being revealed now, to ordinary people who come to Him in weakness, fear, and trembling, and who find that the cross is not foolishness after all, but the very power and wisdom of God.
Reflection
- Where in your life are you tempted to rest your faith on human wisdom, impressive arguments, or your own competence rather than on the power of God?
- Paul says the natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit because they are “spiritually discerned.” How might you be relying on the Spirit less than you think — and what would it look like to depend on Him more today?
Prayer
Father, we confess that we often trust in the wisdom of men — in our own reasoning, our own strength, our own careful words — rather than in Your power. Thank You that You did not leave us to guess at Your heart, but revealed Your hidden wisdom by Your Spirit. Teach us to come to You in weakness, fear, and trembling, knowing that Your strength is made perfect there. Open our eyes to see the cross not as foolishness but as Your glory. Give us the mind of Christ, that we might discern the deep things of God and love what You have prepared for those who love You. In Jesus’ name, amen.