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New Testament Reading - Proclaiming Christ Crucified

¹Dear brothers, even when I first came to you I didn’t use lofty words and brilliant ideas to tell you God’s message. ² For I decided that I would speak only of Jesus Christ and his death on the cross. ³I came to you in weakness — timid and trembling. ⁴And my preaching was very plain, not with a lot of oratory and human wisdom, but the Holy Spirit’s power was in my words, proving to those who heard them that the message was from God. ⁵ I did this because I wanted your faith to stand firmly upon God, not on man’s great ideas.

⁶Yet when I am among mature Christians I do speak with words of great wisdom, but not the kind that comes from here on earth, and not the kind that appeals to the great men of this world, who are doomed to fall. ⁷Our words are wise because they are from God, telling of God’s wise plan to bring us into the glories of heaven. This plan was hidden in former times, though it was made for our benefit before the world began. ⁸But the great men of the world have not understood it; if they had, they never would have crucified the Lord of Glory.

⁹That is what is meant by the Scriptures which say that no mere man has ever seen, heard, or even imagined what wonderful things God has ready for those who love the Lord. ¹⁰But we know about these things because God has sent his Spirit to tell us, and his Spirit searches out and shows us all of God’s deepest secrets. ¹¹No one can really know what anyone else is thinking or what he is really like except that person himself. And no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. ¹²And God has actually given us his Spirit (not the world’s spirit) to tell us about the wonderful free gifts of grace and blessing that God has given us.