PASSAGE · BSB

1 Corinthians 2

10 positions in the corpus lean on this chapter. Cited verses are marked.

1When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.

2For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

3I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling.

4My message and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power,

5so that your faith would not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.

6Among the mature, however, we speak a message of wisdom—but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.

7No, we speak of the mysterious and hidden wisdom of God, which He destined for our glory before time began.

8None of the rulers of this age understood it. For if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

9Rather, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart has imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him.”

10But God has revealed it to us by the Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.

11For who among men knows the thoughts of man except his own spirit within him? So too, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

12We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.

13And this is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.

14The natural man does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

15The spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is not subject to anyone’s judgment.

16“For who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

Who leans on it

Basil the Great on authority of scripturePRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°De Spiritu Sancto 27 is the most-quoted patristic text on this, and his claim is unambiguous: some of what the church preserves comes from written teaching, some was delivered "in a mystery" by apostolic tradition, and t…Calvin on the person of christPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°One person in two natures, each keeping its own properties entire. Calvin names and rejects both errors by name: Nestorius 'presuming to dissect rather than distinguish between the two natures, devised a double Christ,' …Chrysostom on the trinityPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Post-Nicene and unambiguous. The three are one undivided essence, so completely that where one Person is present the whole Trinity is present. Against the Macedonians he presses the Spirit's deity from the grammar of 1 C…Irenaeus on authority of scripturePRIMARY SOURCELEANS°Against Gnostics who reject Scripture as ambiguous and claim a secret oral wisdom instead, Irenaeus argues Scripture and the public, traceable rule of faith reinforce each other — tradition is the transparent, checkable …Second London Baptist Confession on indwelling of the holy spiritPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Chapter 10 makes the Spirit's work the cause of the sinner's willing rather than its consequence. The creature is wholly passive until quickened and renewed by the Spirit, and only then is enabled to answer the call; eff…John MacArthur on authority of scripturePRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Plenary verbal inspiration, inerrancy in the original documents, and a literal-grammatical-historical hermeneutic, argued as necessarily following from inspiration itself.Philip Melanchthon on original sin & the human willDISPUTED READINGCONTESTEDMelanchthon changed his mind, publicly, and the corpus records the change rather than a settled view. The 1521 Loci denies free will outright on determinist grounds. The Augsburg Confession of 1530 holds a middle line — …Westminster Confession on natural / general revelationPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°The Confession opens on this question rather than on Scripture, and gives both halves of the stance in one sentence: creation and providence manifest God far enough to leave men inexcusable, and not far enough to save. W…Westminster Confession on original sin & the human willPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Chapter 6 supplies the anthropology - fallen nature 'utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good' (6.4) - and chapter 9 draws the conclusion about the will. The loss in 9.3 is total but bounded: what is l…Westminster Confession on indwelling of the holy spiritPRIMARY SOURCELEANS°The Confession fixes the order rather than the moment. WCF 10.2 makes the person 'altogether passive' in effectual calling until quickened and renewed by the Spirit, and only then 'enabled to answer this call' - regenera…