We 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. 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. The man without the Spirit 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. (1 Corinthians 2:11–14, NIV 1984).
My Musings – It should not be that surprising that “the man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them.”
What should be surprising is when those of us who have received “the Spirit who is from God” act like we have “received the spirit of the world.” When we speak and follow things “taught us by human wisdom” and not those “taught by the Spirit.” That’s the way “[we] used to live when [we] followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air.” (Ephesians 2:2, NIV 1984).
It’s not like we don’t “understand what God has freely given us.” Or that we do not have the capability to understand “spiritual truths” that can be “spiritually discerned.” For God “has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness.” (2 Peter 1:3, NIV 1984).
My Advice – We “died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though [we] still belonged to it, do [we] submit to its rules? [We] used to walk in these ways, in the life [we] once lived. But now [we] must rid [ourselves] of all such things.” (Colossians 2:20, 3:7-8, NIV 1984).
Let’s surprise the world (and please the Father) by “[living] up to what we have already attained.” (Philippians 3:16, NIV 1984).
