I. Introduction
A. As you may recall, one of the main issues with the church in Corinth was an issue of unity
-They were not sure who their allegiance was to.
-Paul, Apollos, Cephas, or Jesus (1 Corinthians 1:12)
-They were not even sure if they should follow the teachings of the leaders in the church or the philosophers of their day.
-Wisdom of God or the wisdom of men.
B. Paul attempts to clear up both of these issues.
-First, a Christian’s allegiance is to be toward Jesus Christ and Him alone.
-Secondly, we are to ultimately seek God’s wisdom.
-We are to disregard man’s wisdom when it contradicts the word of God.
C. The attainment of God’s wisdom is what Paul addresses next.
PRAYER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
II. There are two types of wisdom in this world. (powerpoint)
1. Human wisdom
2. God’s wisdom
A. Human wisdom
-Human wisdom is limited:
-Albert Einstein remarked in 1932 that “There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable.” (powerpoint)
-Thomas Edison thought alternating current would be a waste of time.
-Franklin Delano Roosevelt once predicted, when he was Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy, that airplanes would never be useful in battle against a fleet of ships.
-There's nothing like the passage of time to make the world's smartest people look like complete idiots. So let's look at a few more.
-In 1883 Lord Kelvin, president of the Royal Society and no poor scientist himself, predicted that “X rays will prove to be a hoax.” (powerpoint)
-When Gary Cooper turned down the Rhett Butler role in Gone With The Wind, he is said to have remarked, “I'm just glad it will be Clark Gable who's falling flat on his face and not Gary Cooper.” (powerpoint)
-“Everything that can be invented, has been invented” announced Charles H. Duell, commissioner of the U.S. Patents Office - in 1899." (powerpoint)
-At the same time, human wisdom is ever expanding
1. Every three years the knowledge base doubles.
2. Every day, seven thousand scientific and technical articles are written.
3. Satellites orbiting the globe send enough data to fill nineteen million volumes in the Library of Congress…..every two weeks.
4. Today’s high school graduates have been exposed to more information than their grandparents were in their entire lifetime.
5. There will be as much change in the next three decades as there was in the last three centuries.
-Yet no matter how much information mankind can gather.
-No matter how many things we invent.
-No matter how intelligent we are or will become.
-There is one thing we will never have….
-The mind of God.
-Therefore we will never have the wisdom of God.
-Isaiah 55:8-9 – “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your
thoughts.” (powerpoint)
B. God’s wisdom
-How do we describe something we do not know?
-That we cannot even imagine?
-Job 12:13 – “With Him are wisdom and strength, He has counsel and understanding. (powerpoint)
***** -Col 2:1-3
-Romans 11:33 – “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!”
(powerpoint)
-God’s wisdom and knowledge are all encompassing.
-There is nothing He does not know.
-There is nothing He has not figured out.
-God’s wisdom is incomprehensible to our mortal minds.
-Don’t waste time trying to figure it out.
-Just trust Him.
III. God’s Mode of Communication
A. How does an all-knowing, all-powerful God give us His wisdom, which we so desperately need, without dumbing it down?
-How does He make it so we can understand it?
-This wisdom is not available to all mankind in their natural state.
***** -1 Corinthians 1:18a
***** - 1 Corinthians 1:23
***** -1 Corinthians 2:14
-It is, however, available to all those who have been saved.
-1 Corinthians 2:10 – “But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.” (powerpoint)
-The Spirit of God in the life of the believer.
-God’s Holy Spirit dwells within each born-again believer.
-Equipping and enabling us to live the life that God wants us to live.
-How and what this means we will get to in more detail later in the study of 1 Corinthians.
-Scripture does tell us that the Spirit dwells, or lives, within each person who has placed his/her faith in Jesus Christ for salvation.
-Romans 8:9-11 – “But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, //// but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” (2 powerpoints)
-1 Corinthians 3:16 – “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (powerpoint)
-1 Corinthians 6:19 – “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” (powerpoint)
B. God reveals His wisdom in three ways (powerpoint)
1. By revelation (powerpoint)
-1 Corinthians 2:10-11 – “But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. (powerpoint)
-We can know people.
-How well do we really know them?
-We know people better than a flea knows a dog
-Flea can find a dog.
-Can live on a dog.
-Can even feed off a dog.
-But the flea can never know the mind of the dog.
-What and how it thinks.
-A dog can know its master.
-Can live with its master.
-Be fed by its master
-Give joy to or receive joy from its master.
- But the dog can never know the mind of the master.
-What and how he thinks.
-A person can know of God.
-Can realize He exists.
-Can even come into a permanent, loving Father/child relationship through faith in Christ.
-But a person can never know the mind of God in and of his/her own power, wisdom, or knowledge.
-God must condescend to us, His creation, to give us this wisdom.
-Which He does through the Holy Spirit.
-So that we might be an example to others of the difference that saving faith makes in a child of God.
-There is no room, right, or reason for a Christian to live the same type of life after they are saved than before they came to Christ.
-Without the Holy Spirit of God dwelling in each believer it is impossible to have the wisdom of God.
-Verse eleven tells us that the only person who really knows us is ourselves.
-The closest relationship that we can have on earth is that of husband and wife.
-They spend years together: share dreams, thoughts, joys, and disappointments.
-Each knows the other almost as well as themselves.
-Almost
-We only truly know ourselves.
-So how do we get to know God?
i. Trinitarianism
-The Bible teaches the doctrine of the Trinity.
- Trinitarianism is the teaching that God is triune, that He has revealed Himself in three co-equal and co-eternal Persons.
-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
-There are numerous verses in scripture in support of this.
-I have not seen 1 Corinthians 2:11 in any list but I would add it.
-Just as I am the only person who knows me.
-God is the only person who truly knows Himself.
-Scripture tells us here that the Holy Spirit knows the things of God (Father).
-Thus, the Holy Spirit is God
-The only way we know God is because He is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit.
-Which leads us to the second way that God reveals His wisdom to us.
2. Inspiration (powerpoint)
-1 Corinthians 2:12-13 – “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” (powerpoint)
-God’s truth has never been discovered by man.
-As if it took some doing on our part.
-Verse 12 tells us we have received that which is freely offered.
-Wisdom from God.
-Contrast that to the wisdom of man that Paul tells us considers the preaching of the cross to be foolishness.
-God’s word is given to us through His Word.
-The Bible, without error in its original writing.
-However, how did we get His word?
-How can we trust it?
-This is where inspiration comes in.
-Inspiration is both verbal and plenary.
- Verbal inspiration means that every word of Scripture is God-given.
-The idea is that every single word in the Bible is there because God wanted it there. (powerpoint)
- Plenary inspiration means that all parts of the Bible are equally authoritative. This includes such things as the genealogies of the Old Testament. (powerpoint)
-All parts of the Bible are of divine origin.
-Jesus said, “But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter of the Law to fail” (Luke 16:17). (powerpoint)
-Paul wrote, “For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4). (powerpoint)
- Inspiration means God guided the process
-The idea behind the word inspiration is that God supernaturally guided the biblical authors to write the exact things that He wanted expressed. -The result is Holy Scripture.
-The word of God is for all of us but was not originally given to each of us.
-The word of God was revealed to the apostles and other writers of Scripture.
-Jesus speaking to His disciples.
- John 14:26 – “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” (powerpoint)
-Paul and the other writers of Scripture did not record their own ideas and interpretations.
-They recorded only what God gave them.
-The Bible does not contain God’s words….
-It is God’s words.
-Liberal theologians will say that the Bible, “contains the word of God”
-Nothing could be further from the truth.
-The Bible IS the word of God!
- 2 Timothy 3:16 – “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness”
(powerpoint)
-inspiration = theopneustos – God breathed
-All of scripture is from the mouth of God.
-This is why Jesus could confidently say in Matthew 4:4, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
(powerpoint)
-This leads us to the third way in which God’s wisdom is revealed to man.
3. Illumination (powerpoint)
-1 Corinthians 2:14-16 – “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For "who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?" But we have the mind of Christ.” (powerpoint)
-Have you ever tried to read something and not understand it?
-Until somebody explained it to you?
-Have you ever tried to read the Bible and not understand it?
-I tried in South Carolina as a young husband and father who wanted to know if there was more to our present life.
-I just couldn’t get it.
-Just because a person reads the Bible does not mean they understand what God is trying to say.
-No matter the version or how many copies you may have.
-No matter how intelligent you think you are.
-Sometimes we just don’t get it.
-Look at the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus day.
-For all their studying, they missed the Messiah
-Verse fourteen tells us this is because the words are spiritual and cannot be discerned by the natural man.
-It is the natural man that considers them foolishness.
-Others have understood this:
- Psalm 119:18 – “Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things from Your law. (powerpoint)
-Martin Luther – “The Bible cannot be understood simply by study or talent. You must count only on the influence of the Holy Spirit.”
(powerpoint)
-John Calvin – “The testimony of the Spirit is superior to reason. For these words will not obtain full credit in the hearts of men until they are sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit” (powerpoint)
-The best man can do in his own wisdom is to, “gnaw the bark of scripture without getting to the wood.” (powerpoint)
-God must open the eyes of the reader to understand His word.
-This is the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
-Indwells each believer.
IV. Conclusion (title powerpoint)
A. The world does not truly understand scripture.
-This is why they don’t really understand those who live by the word of God.
-I am not talking about those who come to church but seem like everyone else the rest of the week.
-I am talking about those who use the word of God as their foundation for the decisions they make and the way they act.
-You are a strange one for sure.
-Base your schedule around church rather than church around your schedule.
-Give a tithe or more to the Lord’s work
-Abstain from immoral behavior.
-Don’t talk like the rest of the world.
-Don’t have the same habits or pleasures as the world.
-What’s wrong with you people?
-You forsake the supposed pleasures of the world and yet you seem happy?
-Even when bad things happen you still have this joy?
-What is it with you people!
-I’ll tell you what it is.
-We have the mind of Christ (V.16)
-Mind = understanding
-We, as Christians understand the word of God.
-Because the Spirit of God has taught us.
-We understand that there is more to this life than pleasing self.
-We are to please the one who gave His life for us.
-Jesus Christ – God in the flesh
-Doctrine of illumination does not mean:
-We can know and understand everything.
-Deuteronomy 29:29 – “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”
(powerpoint)
-We do not need human teachers.
-Ephesians 4:11-12 – “And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (powerpoint)
-Study is not hard work.
-2 Timothy 2:15 – “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (powerpoint)
-It does mean that scripture can be understood by every Christian who is diligent and obedient.
-May you and I be numbered among them.
PRAYER!!!!!!!
