Thy Strong Word — 1 Corinthians 2:1-16: No One Volunteers to be a Christian

Rev. Larry Beane, pastor of Salem Lutheran Church in Gretna, LA and Chaplain in the U.S. Navy Auxiliary (CAP) joins the Rev. Dr. Phil Booe to study 1 Corinthians 2.

St. Paul boasts he did not influence people to become Christians through “lofty speech or wisdom” (v. 1), but spoke only of Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross. The power of salvation lies not in the delivery but the content of the word. Only those who have been called through the Gospel can understand or accept the things of God. St. Paul makes it clear that people cannot be persuaded to believe or come to faith in Christ through logic or eloquent rhetoric. Instead, the Holy Spirit imparts spiritual truths which possess the power of God. Listen in as Pastors Booe and Beane consider what this means for us today as we share the Gospel message with our neighbors.

Thy Strong Word reveals the light of our salvation in Christ through study of God’s Word, breaking our darkness with His redeeming light. Each weekday, two pastors fix our eyes on Jesus by considering Holy Scripture, verse by verse, in order to be strengthened in the Word and be equipped to faithfully serve in our daily vocations.

Thy Strong Word is hosted by Rev. Dr. Phil Booe, pastor of St. John Lutheran Church of Luverne, MN, and graciously underwritten by the Lutheran Heritage Foundation.

1 Corinthians 2

Proclaiming Christ Crucified

2 And I, when I came to you, brothers,^[a] did not come proclaiming to you the testimony^[b] of God with lofty speech or wisdom. ²For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. ³And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, ⁴and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, ⁵so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men^[c] but in the power of God.

Wisdom from the Spirit

⁶Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. ⁷But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. ⁸None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. ⁹But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—

¹⁰these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. ¹¹For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. ¹²Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. ¹³And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.^[d]

¹⁴The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. ¹⁵The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. ¹⁶“For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

Footnotes

1 Corinthians 2:1 Or brothers and sisters
1 Corinthians 2:1 Some manuscripts mystery (or secret)
1 Corinthians 2:5 The Greek word anthropoi can refer to both men and women
1 Corinthians 2:13 Or interpreting spiritual truths in spiritual language, or comparing spiritual things with spiritual

Rev. Dr. Phil Booe

Native North Carolinian Rev. Dr. Phil Booe serves pastor of St. John Lutheran Church of Luverne, MN, and host of Thy Strong Word on KFUO Radio. His parishioners probably think he can’t teach Bible study without a mug of coffee in his hand, and he’ll always be happy to eat a plate of sushi. When he’s not shepherding his flock or teaching on the radio, you might find him watching bad movies from the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and especially binging RiffTrax and MST3K episodes. Some day he’d love to travel to the Lutheran homeland in Germany, but for now he spends time in Minnesota with his wife, son, daughter, and cat, and looks forward to Holy Week every year.