 Wow, what a room full of wisdom. It's beautiful. Anybody here feel like you've you've gained wisdom in the last day and a half? Anybody here feel like you've had a fire hose of wisdom poured on you on the last day and a half? I can see it. You're glowing. You're shiny. Glory to God. I love speaking to this group in particular Applied Biblical Studies Conference because you're the people who don't just want milk. You want meat. Isn't that right? You're hungry for a meat. You're biblical carnivores. I love it. So I'm going to be speaking about the secret wisdom of God. Let's begin with a prayer in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Heavenly Father, thank you for the incredible privilege we have of being your adopted sons and daughters in Christ and having access to the immensity of all of the riches of heaven in the Holy Spirit. And we ask you Father to send your Holy Spirit upon us now. Send your holy fire on us, oh Lord, to enlighten our minds and awaken our understanding to the breadth and length and height and depth of what you have given us that we might know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge that we might be filled with all your fullness, oh God. We give you glory and thanks through your beloved son Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. I want to just start by proposing to you a little case scenario. You are a priest or deacon or lay ecclesial minister or volunteer who just got assigned to serve in a new parish. When you arrive you find that there are a few challenges. You find that many of the parishioners are poorly cataclyzed and in fact just like the recent Pew survey showed only about half of them even understand the church's teaching on the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. There are some who openly ignore the teaching of the church on morality, especially sexual morality. There's also some liturgical abuse going on. There's a lot of irreverence at the liturgy. Besides all that, there's tensions among the parishioners. Clicks have formed. The Charismatic Prayer Group is at war with the traditionalists. You also discover that some of the parishioners are dabbling in new age forms of spirituality like horoscopes and reiki. And then as you dig deeper, you also find that a lot of the couples in the congregation are really struggling with marital problems. Meanwhile, some of the wealthier parishioners seem indifferent to the needs of the families that are really struggling just to make ends meet. Besides all that, there's a lot of gossip going on. There's arrogance. There's pride. There's judgmentalism. So finally, feeling rather discouraged and desperate for guidance about what to do, you write to a wise pastor to let him know what's going on and ask him for his advice. What parish have I described? Wait, don't answer that. I have just described to you St. Paul's in Corinth. In the first century, the church founded by no less than St. Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. And you, whom I have just described are one of Chloe's people that you find mentioned in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 11 who have just written a letter to the founding pastor, Paul. And lo and behold, he actually writes back to your surprise and delight and he writes back a letter to the whole parish. And it becomes known in history as 1 Corinthians, St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. Did you know that every single one of the problems that I just mentioned, some of which you possibly may have experienced at one time or another, is actually addressed by St. Paul in the letter we know as 1 Corinthians. A church founded only about five years previously by the great apostle. Founded in the city of Corinth, which was basically the Las Vegas of the ancient Near East. And on this slide you see a picture of Corinth with a big mountain behind it. On the top of that mountain was the temple to Aphrodite, who was the Greek goddess of love and romance and sexuality. So you can kind of imagine what life might have been like in Corinth when Paul went there preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. And now he hears back these reports from the people in Corinth about five years later about all of these troubles going on. But amazingly, he's not discouraged. And in fact, right at the beginning of his letter, he calls these very wayward people those made holy in Christ Jesus, called to be holy. He calls them God's holy temple for whom he thanks God continually. These people, he thanks God for them continually because of the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus. That's not flattery. Paul is speaking profound truth. He is not discouraged or downhearted or defeated by their conduct because he knows the deeper truth of who they are in Christ. He does, however, confront their problems head on. And in this talk, I am going to unpack a passage in that letter for Corinthians that I believe is the key to Paul's response to the array of troubles in that parish and likewise in the church today. That passage is 1 Corinthians 2, 6 to 16. I'm going to unpack it so that we can learn from his wisdom as a theologian and as a pastor and apply it to the myriad of problems we're facing in our own situations in our own local church today. Now the essence of Paul's answer is not. He doesn't start out simply by saying, hey guys, shape up, cut it out, be nice. Can't we all just get along with one another? No, his answer is he lays a profound theological foundation. He lays a foundation of truth for the radical transformation of life that he's calling them to. And that's something characteristic of St. Paul. In all his letters in one way or another, he always begins with what God has done for us. And then he moves on to what we ought to do in response. Sometimes I listen to various homilies and teachings and preaching today and it looks to me like sometimes, very often, it's about 90% what we ought to do. We ought to pray more. We ought to give more. We ought to be kind to one another. We ought to sacrifice more. And that's all good and it's all right and true and we need to hear it. And it's 90% what we ought to do, 10%, if that, what God has done for us. But Paul spends far more time talking about who God is and what he has done for us. And only then does he talk about what we are to do in response. Now, of all the problems that Paul identifies in Corinth, disunity, sexual immorality, liturgical abuse, dissent from the church's doctrine, lack of care for the poor, immature, chaotic use of spiritual gifts, which is the one that disturbs him the most? Which one does he attack first? Divisiveness. Divisiveness. Tearing apart the unity of the body of Christ. That's the one that exercises the most. That's the one that he finds the most destructive that has to be dealt with first in order to deal with the other problems. So, right off the bat, he says, I urge you brothers in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that all of you agree in what you say and that there be no divisions. The Greek word is schismata. What word do you think we get from that? Schisms, right? That there be no schismata among you, but that you be united in the same mind in the same purpose. You know, we think of the great ecclesial schisms that have happened in history. 1054, the split between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. And then in the 16th century, the divide with Protestants. And since then, further splitting among different Protestant groups. All of those great ecclesial schisms that have torn apart the unity of the body of Christ, they begin in the local church. They begin in the family. They begin with individuals being self-centered and prideful and judgmental and tearing apart that unity that is so sacred to God. Symbolized by the robe of Jesus that wasn't torn when he was crucified. And that's why Paul finds it so crucial to stand against this spirit of disunity that's going on in Corinth. Now he talks about a lot of different facets of the problem, the disunity, their rivalries. He talks about boasting. A lot of you are boasting. And he says, you know, I'm looking at you. You don't look so hot. You're not such hot stuff in the eyes of the world. Why are you boasting? There's jealousy. There's inflated pride. There's factions. There's party lines. And it seems like at the heart of their divisions is competition over their favorite leader. They're arguing about who's the greatest. Sounds a little like something that happened with the 12 apostles, right? Arguing about who's the greatest. I'm for Paul. He's our founder. He founded this church. I'm for Apollos. He's much smarter and more eloquent. And his biblical eyes said, Jesus is just amazing. He can take an Old Testament passage and get more insight out of it than John Bergsma. Well, I'm for Peter. Jesus chose him as the rock. I'm for Luther. I'm for Calvin. I'm for Cardinal So-and-So. I'm above it all. I'm for Jesus. Paul says, you're all wrong. You're all wrong because you're tearing apart the unity of the body of Christ. It seems like in the case of the Corinthians, right at the heart of their rivalry over who's the favorite leader is wisdom. In fact, wisdom, the word wisdom, is 17 times in one Corinthians. It's only 11 times in all the rest of the letters of Paul put together. So, wisdom is really the theme in one Corinthians. The Corinthians are enamored with it. They're Greeks, and Greek culture highly valued wisdom. And wisdom was understood as that kind of knowledge that leads to success and honor, power and influence. So, they really loved wisdom. So, Paul spends the first part of his letter blasting wisdom. So, he says, God says in Isaiah, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever, I will thwart. The world didn't come to know God through wisdom. You know, with all the great achievements of Greek philosophy, he didn't come to know God, the living God. The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom. God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. And then Paul says, I didn't come to you proclaiming the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom. My speech and my message were not implausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. So, he's saying, stopping so infatuated with wisdom. Stop fighting over your favorite church leaders based on how wise you think they are. Now, just so you don't start to get worried that I'm tearing down everything that's been built up so far in this conference, I'm getting now to the place where Paul suddenly shifts gears. Chapter two, verses six to sixteen. All of a sudden, he begins to speak positively about wisdom. All of a sudden, Paul is saying, wait, don't get me wrong. I'm not against wisdom. I want you to be wise. There is a Christian wisdom. I want to impart to you when you're ready for it, but it's totally different from the wisdom of the world. Now, this passage, chapter two, verses six to sixteen, is the key to resolving their disunity and all their other problems. Now, full disclosure, I actually wrote my doctoral dissertation on this passage, so I'm packing 350 pages into 50 minutes, but it's okay because Scott said I could take an extra two hours. We'll get through it. There are three parts to this passage. The first part is God's plan for our glory. The second part is the Holy Spirit's revelation. And the third part is spiritual and unspiritual people. So let's look at each part of these, and I'm just going to give you my translation, which is a more literal translation. It's close to the RSV Catholic Bible, but it's a little bit more literal. So he says, now, even though I've been blasting human wisdom and all its pretensions yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age who are doomed to pass away. The rulers of this age, who are the rulers of this age? All the people that run the show. Not only government powers, but the cultural elite. The people who set the tone. The educators who form the cream of the cream. All of those who set the cultural atmosphere belong to the rulers of this age. And Paul, in this case he's talking about very literally the Sanhedrin and Pilate who colluded in putting to death the Son of God. But there's something more behind them. The rulers of this age are not just human beings. The rulers of this age are also demonic authorities who are using human beings, usually unbeknownst to them. And that have a vast and intricate plan for the destruction of the human race. Jesus called Satan the ruler of this world. In any given era, including our own era, the rulers of this age can seem incredibly powerful. They're in place. They are successful. They're beautiful. Everybody looks to them for how to think and how to act and how to live and how to speak. And as Christians, we can be profoundly tempted to bow down to the rulers of this age. Even the church can be tempted to bend over backwards to avoid offending them. To tone down our message to get on their good side. Today we can think of the secular media, the global mega corporations that more and more are making no secret of their hatred for Christianity. And their willingness to punish those who don't toe the party line, the agenda of this age. FAMGA. Do you know what FAMGA is? Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Apple. They all belong to the rulers of this age. And they're tightening the screws on us Christians today, aren't they? They're starting to censor things that they don't like. They're starting to make things difficult for those who want to proclaim the gospel in the public square. And that's only going to increase. They seem, and in a human sense, they are incredibly powerful. More and more they control the economic system. I mean, they can actually make a state governor cower in fear because they're going to pull a huge amount of business out of that state. They don't support the party line about pro-abortion, same-sex marriage, etc. Paul says, they are doomed to pass away. Don't fear them. Because the whole present order of things when the rulers of this age are in control, it's illusory and it's very temporary. And it's soon to collapse. And there is another infinitely greater power at work in history. There isn't Jesus and his kingdom. And he's the only true ruler. So I'm not giving you a wisdom like the wisdom of this age, Paul says. He says, but we impart a wisdom of God hidden in mystery. Usually that's translated a secret hidden wisdom of God. A secret wisdom of God which God decreed before the ages for our glory. Now it's right here, Paul's getting right to the heart of what he wants to teach. The core to resolving all the problems at Corinth. There's a secret wisdom of God that I want to give you. Now wait a minute. Is Paul saying that he's got a secret knowledge for the elite? Is Paul saying that he's got an esoteric knowledge for the people who are really in? That's what some of the pagan Greek mystery religions used to teach. The way to salvation is the secret esoteric knowledge and only the insiders get it. The ancient heresy of Gnosticism taught the same thing. You've got to be one of the elite. It's a little bit like Freemasonry today. The higher you go in Freemasonry, the more access you get to the secret esoteric knowledge. Is Paul saying that some biblical scholars hold that that's what Paul is saying? That shows the danger of doing biblical scholarship without the Holy Spirit. You can read what Paul says and totally miss the meaning. You can understand the meaning of the words and the grammar. Totally miss what he's talking about. No, of course he's not saying that. For Paul, when he says mystery, the wisdom of God hidden in mystery, he's talking about the awesome incredible plan of God that was hidden for endless ages, but now has been revealed in Christ. It's been made known in the gospel, and yet it's still a mystery because it infinitely surpasses our capacity to understand it. It's infinitely beyond what we could grasp. It's what God decreed before the ages for our glory. The mystery is the glory of God's intention for us. Hidden in the heart of God for all eternity. An incredible mystery. And he says none of the rulers of this age understood this. For if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. None of them had any clue about the plan of God. It totally confounds human wisdom. It's totally other than what human logic would come up with. Now, you might wonder if the rulers of this age also include the demons. Don't the gospels tell us that the demons did know who Jesus was? Sometimes when Jesus does a miracle or when he casts out a demon, the demons shout, I know who you are, the Holy One of God. Didn't they know who he was? Yes, they knew who he was, but they didn't know the plan. They did not know the plan because if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. That phrase is the, it's the starkest expression of the paradox of the cross. In fact, you can obliterate three or four major heresies with that phrase alone. They crucified the Lord of glory. They didn't crucify a mere man. It's not that Jesus just seemed to be human, or that the Son of God temporarily united with a human being, and then he left when things got rough. Some of the ancient heresies held that. Or that he, he's not really God. He's sort of a lower God. No, it's the Lord of glory. That's a title for God, the Holy One, the creator of all things. It's the living Son of the living God who was crucified, put to death by the rulers of this world. So when they did that, and when they whipped up the crowds to shout, Crucify him. The rulers of this age thought it was their greatest triumph. They thought it was their hour of finally doing away with a person who had really bothered them and was upsetting their plans. Instead, it was their utter defeat. That, says Paul, is the secret hidden wisdom of God. In 33 A.D., on a hill outside Jerusalem, the Lord of glory, the omnipotent Son of God through whom the worlds were created, was subjected to the most abhorrent, horrendous, grotesque form of capital punishment that had ever been known. A God who decides to win back his world by hanging helpless, powerless, naked, tortured on an instrument of torture to a worldly mind. That is total absurdity. An all-powerful God who hangs naked and helpless. Paul, are you saying to us Corinthians that a guy who was executed 20 years ago by the state authorities in a backwater province called Judea is actually the king of kings and the Lord of lords through whom all things were created? Yeah. That's the secret wisdom of God. And now at this point, Paul brings in his lynchpin biblical quotation. And this is how he shows this is all part of the plan. And this verse is very famous. I'm sure you know this verse, verse nine. But as it is written, know what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him. Now the question here is, what exactly is Paul quoting? If you look this up, you find there is no exact verse like that in the Old Testament. The closest verse there is is in Isaiah, Isaiah 64 verse four. Let's look at that because if you've ever learned from Scott Hahn, you know that when Paul quotes the Old Testament, he always quotes assuming the broader context, right? He assumes you know the word of God and he assumes you know the whole passage, not just the little snippet that he's quoting. So let's look at Isaiah 64. This is a prayer for God to reveal himself in power. Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence as when fire kindles brush wood and the fire causes water to boil to make your name known to your adversaries and that the nations might tremble at your presence. When you did awesome things that we did not look for, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence from of old, no one has heard or perceived by the ear. No, I has seen a God besides you who acts for those who wait for him. This is the prophet saying, God, look, your people are crushed. We've been in exile, we're humiliated, we're scattered, we've been clobbered by our enemies. God, when are you going to show up like you did in the Exodus with all those mighty deeds? That's what Isaiah is praying. That's what Paul is quoting. But if you look carefully, you see that part of what Paul quotes is not here. There's nothing about the heart. The heart part is missing here. So there's actually another verse that Paul is combining with the Isaiah quote. It's from Deuteronomy 29. Now this is part of Moses' final speech at the end of his life when Israel is about to enter the Promised Land. They've been through the Exodus and all the miracles. They're about to enter the Promised Land. Moses is about to die and he reminds them of all God's mighty deeds. And he says to them, you have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land. The great trials that your eyes saw, the signs and those great wonders. But to this day, the Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear. You saw it all, Israel. You saw the plagues on Egypt. You saw the red sea split in two. You saw the rock split in water gush forth. You saw manna from heaven. Yet you didn't see. You didn't get it. You saw God's incredible provision for you and you didn't get it. Otherwise you wouldn't be still distrusting him, turning to idols, walking away from him. You're spiritually deaf and blind and obtuse. Why didn't you get it? Because you're self-reliant. You didn't think you needed him. You didn't turn to him. You haven't sought him. Moses gives that kind of reproach to the people. But a little bit later he tells them, you know, because of your spiritual blindness, deafness and stubbornness, you're going to go into exile. You're going to suffer a lot, but that's going to make you turn back to God. And there's going to come a day when you'll be humbled. And in that day, Deuteronomy 30 verse 6, he says, God will circumcise your heart. God will change your heart so that you will love him with all your heart and with all your soul. God is finally going to give you the seeing and the hearing of the heart so that you get it. So that you get what he's done for you and you're able to respond to him with wholehearted love. So we have a lament for Moses. We have the prayer of Isaiah. Paul puts them together. Paul weaves them together. And what's his point? Now he's done it. Now God has done it. What Moses lamented hadn't yet happened. What Isaiah prayed for. Now God has done it. Now the thing about this verse, 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 9, is that it's pretty much one of the most often misquoted verses in the Bible. Because I would guess that all of you have heard it quoted this way. As it is written, no eye has seen nor ear heard nor the heart of man conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. Period. How many have heard it quoted that way? Yeah, that's the way it's always quoted. Well, they neglect the fact that it's not the end of the sentence. Paul actually says at the end of the sentence, all of these things that nobody could have seen or heard or imagined, God has revealed them to us through the Spirit. In other words, Paul is not talking about things that are not to be revealed until we get to heaven one day. He's saying what nobody could have seen or heard or imagined has now been revealed to us. That changes the whole meaning. So when Moses said, Israel, God hasn't yet given you the eyes to really see or ears to hear. And Isaiah was praying, God rend the heavens and come down. Paul is saying, he has rend the heavens and come down. In fact, if you read the Gospel of Mark, what happens right after Jesus is baptized? Jesus getting baptized is his yes to the whole plan of the Father that he would be the suffering Messiah. What happens right after he comes up from the water? The heavens are rent. They're torn open. The prayer of Isaiah is fulfilled. And then what happens at the very moment Jesus dies on the cross, the curtain of the temple is rent. It's another sign that the rending of the heavens, the tearing of the barrier between God and man. Paul is saying what nobody could have imagined before. Now God has revealed to us through the Spirit. And he doesn't just say that we can understand. He says we can see, we can hear. It's very sensory. The hidden wisdom of God that's now revealed. It's not just a mental object. It's experienced. God has made his magnificent plan visible and audible. In fact, Jesus says something very like that in the Gospels. They ask him, Jesus, why do you always speak in parables? He says, this is why. Because seeing they don't see and hearing they don't hear, nor do they understand. Just like Isaiah prophesied. For this people's heart has grown dull. And with their ears they can barely hear. And with their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn and I would heal them. But then he says, Yeah, all of that blindness and deafness applied in the past. And it applies to the people who are not receiving my word today, but it doesn't apply to you. Blessed are your eyes for they see and your ears for they hear. So now we've got to move to the second part where Paul explains what does that actually mean? That the Holy Spirit reveals this hidden wisdom of God. He says, the Spirit searches everything even the depths of God. The depths of God. What does he mean by the depths of God? The Spirit searches the depths of God. Let's look at a couple other places where Paul talks about the depth in Romans 11. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How insurchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways. Paul has just been talking about the awesome plan of salvation. Gentiles brought into the family of God along with Jews and he's saying who could have imagined? It's the depth of the plan of God. In Ephesians chapter three, he says, Oh, that you may have power to comprehend with all the saints. What is the bread, the length and height and depth? The same Greek word, Bathos. And to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. It's also in the gospel. You know, at the beginning of this new millennium, the third millennium, Pope John Paul II wrote a beautiful letter called at the beginning of the millennium and he gave the entire church a theme basically to lead us into this third millennium of the church's history. Anybody remember what that theme was? Out into the deep. That was the theme that he announced. Put out into the deep. And it's from the Gospel of Luke where Peter has been fishing all night. He hasn't caught a thing and Jesus says to him, Put out into the deep. Same word, the Bathos. Now on one level, it literally means Peter, go to the deep water. In obedience to my word, you're going to catch the fish. But there's a much deeper level. What is the deep? The heart of God. You want to bear fruit? You want to catch fish? You want to have life in your ministry, in your mission? Put out into the deep. The deep is the heart of God. And then you'll catch the fish. And then you'll find the fruitfulness that goes beyond human fruitfulness. So when Paul says the Spirit searches the depths of God, he's talking about the very heart of God, the unfathomable, limitless ocean of love by which God gave us his only beloved Son, the Lord of glory to be crucified for us so that we could share his life forever. So we could share his glory. That's the hidden wisdom revealed by the Spirit. And he goes on to explain now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we might understand the things freely given us by God. So this is kind of a reproach. Paul is saying, look, look, Christians, look, look, church, you haven't received the Spirit of the world, but you're acting as if you had. Spirit of the world. That's the deep rooted values, assumptions, patterns of thinking that moves people today. Ignorant of God, often disregarding God, having nothing to do with the truth of the gospel, leading to all the jealousy and boasting and ambition and divisiveness that was going on in Corinth. That's not the Spirit you've received, but you're acting as if you had. No, rather, you've received the Spirit that is from God so that you can understand the free gifts of God, the things freely given to us by God. And what are the things freely given to us by God? In a word, Jesus, the whole mysterious, glorious plan by which God from all the eternity decided to give us what was most precious, the pearl of great price for God, the treasure of God's heart, which was His Son so that we could be free, forgiven, become sons and daughters, all the magnificent graces that have become ours in Him, freedom, access to heaven and to all the blessings of God. The Holy Spirit makes that known to us. Now, a little example, a priest friend, some of you might remember Father Francis Martin, he used to speak at conferences here a lot, and he used to say, what happened when that man died? Yeah, Jesus died on the cross. We could all give a religious answer about what happened when Jesus died, but what happened when that man died? What does it have to do with you? What does it have to do with you? That a Jew from Nazareth was crucified on a hill outside Jerusalem in 33 AD. What happened when that man died? Only the Holy Spirit can show us. And when He shows us, it changes everything. You could get an A on the religion test and still not know what happened when that man died and what it has to do with you. Just imagine, you know, saying to somebody, God loves you. God loves you. Without the Holy Spirit, it's a little bit like saying to a completely colorblind person, it's red. You could say it again. No, it's red and they don't get it because they're colorblind. You could say a million times, it's red, it's red, it's red. Don't you get it? It's red. And they won't get it. They won't have any clue what that means because they're colorblind. God loves you. Without the Holy Spirit, it has no meaning. Christ died for you. You've been forgiven. You can have a completely new life in Him. Without the Holy Spirit, it's like saying it's red. An example for my own life. When I was a student here at Steubenville in the grad program, spring break, two busloads of us students went down to Daytona Beach, Florida during spring break. Like so many college students, we went down to Daytona Beach to evangelize on the beach. That's Steubenville for you. And it was a beautiful, kind of scary experience in many ways but one thing that really changed my life. We just happened to be in a church on one of the nights there and we had a music band and it was kind of repetitive and the refrain of the song was, Jesus is alive. He is alive, He is alive, He is alive, He is alive. And all of a sudden as I was listening to that song, I suddenly realized, He is alive. He is alive. He is alive. And that changes everything. It suddenly hit me at a level it had never hit me before. It was a Holy Spirit moment. And suddenly I knew, it was like I began to see color for the first time. Suddenly I knew everything was different because Jesus really is alive. We need that Holy Spirit revelation. Or another little example. Picture yourself on a mountain with this beautiful vista before you and there's an attorney standing next to you. He puts his arm around your shoulder and he says to you, hey, you see that beautiful village out there in the distance? Yeah? He says, it's yours. You've inherited it. He says, you see the mountains their way off in the distance? You see that river running like a silver thread through the valley? Yeah? It's yours. You've inherited it. You see the forest and the rolling hill? It's yours. That's the Holy Spirit telling us what we have inherited in Christ. Our baptismal inheritance. The Holy Spirit alone can make it known to us so that it's real to us. And when we receive that revelation from the Holy Spirit, the response is faith. He reveals we believe. We believe. He reveals our inheritance, the kingdom. Faith goes and explores the territory. We begin to take possession of the kingdom that is ours. Faith gets deep to the degree the revelation is personal. To the degree we have received the revelation of that hidden wisdom which is the awesome plan of God coming from the very heart of God. The gift of the crucifixion of the Lord of Glory to the degree we receive that revelation our faith gets deep. And once we discover the magnitude of what is ours in Christ we can't be dominated by other things anymore. Once we start to get that revelation from the Holy Spirit you can't be overcome by lesser things. You can't be dominated anymore by fear or anxiety or depression or guilt or anger or lust. No, those things are still going to rise up in you because we're falling in a fallen world they're still rise up but they can't dominate you anymore when you get that revelation from the Holy Spirit. Paul says that's what you need Corinthians. And he goes on to say the Holy Spirit is also necessary for teaching others that secret wisdom of God. So we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. Now here he's talking about anointed preaching anointed teaching. Why is there so much bland ineffective preaching in the church today? Why can kids go to 13 years Catholic school, four years of Catholic university and come out with a totally secular mind view, a world view how much have their teachers relied on the Holy Spirit? The human mind is like black and white film so trying to transmit the wisdom of God the gospel with the human intellect alone without the Holy Spirit's revelation it's trying to show a full 3D color movie on black and white film you miss it. So Paul says anyone who wants to impart the faith teachers, preachers, catechists, evangelists parents teaching their children the Holy Spirit has to give you the words you got to ask him you got to rely on him to give you the words and he will he will give you the words St. Thomas Aquinas one of the most brilliant minds in church history he would go to pray before the Tabernacle he would weep before the Lord every time he was about to give some kind of message or teaching begging the Lord to show him what to say and how to say it if he did it how could we not? Okay so let's go on very briefly to the third part of the passage Paul shows now what's the effect of receiving that revelation from the Holy Spirit of the hidden wisdom well surprisingly he begins to talk about two different kinds of people the spiritual and the unspiritual and he says the unspiritual person doesn't receive the gifts of the spirit of God because they are folly to him and he's not able to understand that because they are spiritually discerned now that word unspiritual it's one of those really hard to translate Greek words in Greek it's psukikos and it literally is like the soul-ish person it's the person who lives by the soul alone you could say psychic but that's not exactly the meaning he doesn't mean psychic person but he means a person who lives by their natural faculties alone now the human soul is beautiful it's created by God we have amazing faculties of memory and intellect and will but it can't understand the gifts of God by itself it cannot understand that secret wisdom of God and the unspiritual person is the person who lives by the natural reason alone but the spiritual person the pneumaticos person lives by the revelation of the Holy Spirit he gets it now is Paul again endorsing the kind of spiritual elitism and he's saying some of you are spiritual some of you are unspiritual in a church already prone to boasting and division no he's saying examine yourself examine yourself you have the spirit you're Christians, you're baptized into Christ you have the spirit but are you a pneumaticos person are you thinking by the spirit are you receiving his revelation and taking it in are you living by it or are you living by the wisdom of this world and the rulers of this age Femga what are you living by the unspiritual person doesn't receive the gifts of the spirit of God they're folly to him he doesn't get them they don't make sense the spiritual person on the other hand judges all things but is to be judged by no one well now is Paul giving a pass for arrogance, presumption no but he's saying if you live by the revelation of the Holy Spirit you have an unclouded vision that lets you see everything in God's perspective in kingdom perspective you're able to rightly discern relationships family issues the economy elections, national news the troubles in the church everything you can rightly discern in the light of the Holy Spirit that is enlightening your mind on the other hand the unspiritual person can't even rightly discern things of this world much less the things of God and later in the letter Paul gives some examples he says you Corinthians you should be able to recognize your spiritual leaders that you're fighting over as just servants of God you should be able to recognize the church as the holy temple that you can't tear apart you should recognize your body as a holy temple of God you should be able to recognize the Lord's body in the Eucharist you should be able to discern prophetic words you can do all that if you're living by the revelation of the Holy Spirit the spiritual person is to be judged by no one he can't be understood by the blind a seeing person can see everything the blind man does the blind man can't see anything that the sighted person is doing Paul is calling all of us be those who live by the Spirit and then he sums up at the very end for who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him but we have the mind of Christ what a bold thing to say we have the mind of Christ who can understand God's mind Paul says you can who can understand the wisdom hidden for ages and generations you can through the Holy Spirit you have that incredible privilege a couple verses later which I won't go into Paul says look if you don't have that if you're living by worldly wisdom you're actually living by the flesh it's even worse than you think you're fleshly people and he says if you're still fighting with each other and saying I belong to Paul I belong to Paulus I belong to Cephas you're acting like human beings Paul actually says to them stop acting like human beings Paul what are we supposed to act like like God to have the mind of Christ it's not only to have his understanding it's to have his mentality and what's his mentality pure outpoured self-giving love utter humility utter gift of himself that's the way to unity in the body of Christ that's the way to resolve all the other issues in your local parish that's the hidden wisdom that God wants to give you I'd like to end with a prayer from another passage in St. Paul one of my favorites it's very closely connected with the passage I just unpacked and this one is from Ephesians chapter one the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of Glory may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe according to the working of his great might which he accomplished in Christ when he raised him from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named not only in this age but in that which is to come and he put all things under his feet and made him head over all things for the church which is his body the fullness of him who fills all in all amen in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen