True Spirituality – 1 Corinthians 2:6-16

Can an unbeliever “understand” the gospel?  Absolutely!  But there is a big difference between understanding the gospel and embracing the gospel.  Paul uses the word “understand” in this passage to mean “accept” and he asserts that the unbeliever, the “natural person” is not able to accept the truth.

Yet 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. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, 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”—

these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For 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. Now 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. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

The 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. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.  (1 Corinthians 2:6-16 ESV)

The Corinthian lust for “wisdom” has led them to question Paul’s grasp on wisdom, but he has rejected human wisdom as contrary to the gospel.  He does, however, impart true wisdom to those who are spiritually mature.  It is a wisdom God hid away and kept from the rulers of this age but that has been revealed to him and the other apostles and prophets by the Holy Spirit.  He, the Holy Spirit, knows everything about God (because He is a member of the Trinity) and contrary to the spirit of the world He has taught the apostle spiritual truths for spiritual people.

The unbeliever, the soulish or natural person, cannot embrace these truths because the Spirit has not revealed them to him.  But the person who has the Spirit understands the mind of Christ and obeys it.  Paul is implying that the Corinthians are more like the natural man than the spiritual, something they would boastfully reject.

How spiritual are you?  That can be answered by the place you give to the gospel in your life.  If you are more enamored by the wisdom of this world, scouring the magazine section for answers to life, finding hope in what is taught on TV by celebrities, then your spirituality is to be questioned.