¹ For my own part, Brothers, when I came to you, it was with no display of eloquence or philosophy that I came to tell the hidden purpose of God;

² for I had determined that, while with you, I would know nothing but Jesus Christ — and him crucified!

³ Indeed, when I came among you, I was weak, and full of fears, and in great anxiety.

⁴ My Message and my Proclamation were not delivered in the persuasive language of philosophy, but were accompanied by the manifestation of spiritual power,

⁵ so that your faith should be based, not on the philosophy of man, but on the power of God.

⁶ Yet there is a philosophy that we teach to those whose faith is matured, but it is not the philosophy of to-day, nor that of the leaders of to-day — men whose downfall is at hand.

⁷ No, it is a divine philosophy that we teach, one concerned with the hidden purpose of God — that long-hidden philosophy which God, before time began, destined for our glory.

⁸ This philosophy is not known to any of the leaders of to-day; for, had they known it, they would not have crucified our glorified Lord.

⁹ It is what Scripture speaks of as — ‘What eye never saw, nor ear ever heard, what never entered the mind of man — even all that God has prepared for those who love him.’

¹⁰ Yet to us God revealed it through his Spirit; for the Spirit fathoms all things, even the inmost depths of God’s being.

¹¹ For what man is there who knows what a man is, except the man’s own spirit within him? So, also, no one comprehends what God is, except the Spirit of God.

¹² And as for us, it is not the Spirit of the World that we have received, but the Spirit that comes from God, that we may realize the blessings given to us by him.

¹³ And we speak of these gifts, not in language taught by human philosophy, but in language taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual things in spiritual words.

¹⁴ The merely intellectual man rejects the teaching of the Spirit of God; for to him it is mere folly; he cannot grasp it, because it is to be understood only by spiritual insight.

¹⁵ But the man with spiritual insight is able to understand everything, although he himself is understood by no one.

¹⁶ For ‘who has so comprehended the mind of the Lord as to be able to instruct him?’ We, however, have the very mind of Christ.