1 When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with superiority of speech or wisdom, proclaiming to you the mystery of God. 2 For I determined not to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3 When I was with you, I was weak and afraid and I shook. 4 My speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith would not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
6 We speak wisdom, however, among those who are mature, but a wisdom not of this age or of the rulers of this age, who will pass away. 7 But we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom that has been hidden, which God foreordained before the ages for our glory, 8 which none of the rulers of this age has understood. For had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But as it is written, No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has imagined the things which God has prepared for those who love him.
10 But to us God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? So also, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 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. 13 And we speak of these things, not with words taught by human wisdom, but with those taught by the Spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things. 14 Now the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he who is spiritual discerns all things, and he himself is judged by no one. 16 For "who has known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.