📖WEB · 1 Corinthians 2:13
What does 1 Corinthians 2:13 mean?
"Which things also we speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things."
— 1 Corinthians 2:13 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
But to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
For who among men 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 God’s Spirit.
But we received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that were freely given to us by God.
Which things also we speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things.
Now the natural man doesn’t receive the things of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and he can’t know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
But he who is spiritual discerns all things, and he himself is judged by no one.
“For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct him?” But we have Christ’s mind.
Explanation
1 Corinthians 2:13 comes in the middle of Paul's discussion about the source and nature of true spiritual wisdom. In plain language, Paul is saying that when he and his fellow apostles teach, they are not relying on clever human rhetoric or philosophical polish. Instead, the very words they use to communicate spiritual truths are shaped and given by the Holy Spirit. He is drawing a contrast between two sources of speech: one rooted in human cleverness and one rooted in divine revelation, and he insists that his message belongs to the second category, both in its content and in its expression.
The context is important. Paul wrote this letter to the church in Corinth, a city known for valuing eloquence, rhetorical skill, and intellectual sophistication. Some in the Corinthian church were apparently impressed by polished speakers and sophisticated arguments, and they may have looked down on Paul's preaching as unimpressive by comparison. Earlier in chapters 1 and 2, Paul has already argued that he deliberately avoided "excellence of speech or of wisdom" (2:1) when he first came to them, choosing instead to proclaim Christ crucified in a way that depended on the power of God rather than persuasive human argument. Verse 13 continues that theme: the truths he teaches come from the Spirit of God, who alone knows the depths of God (2:10-11), and so the very language used to convey them must likewise come from the Spirit rather than from human wisdom.
Theologically, this verse teaches that divine truth requires divine means both to be rev
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