Summary - I Corinthians 2:6-13

Then and Now: Paul wants the Corinthians to understand what he was doing as a teacher. Theoretically he could speak to them as mature individuals in the body of Christ. They knew what the world's rulers didn't - death was conquered in Christ's resurrection. No more would the power of the state be supreme because the fear of death was removed. The political powers were continuing to operate with world values and systems which Christ had put to death, but Christians now worked with knowledge and insight gained from the Spirit. They could look past the present age to the one which was coming. Indeed, its presence already existed with Christ's resurrection.

The passage brings in two themes (Wright, p. 25): (a) Political powers do not understand the Cross, and (b) the Holy Spirit within each believer gives him/her the ability to know the mind of God. That means Christians have a life-long opportunity to know more and more the things of the Spirit and that they have a life-long requirement to teach, work for change and sometimes confront the misuse of governmental power.

If these are the tasks, then the job of church leaders is to lead by example and to keep track of (notice) the spiritual strengths and weaknesses of the members of the body. As leaders, Paul, Cephas, and Apollos had God's wisdom and were able to speak it as God revealed it to them. They received the Spirit of God (not the spirit of the world) which enabled them to proclaim spiritual knowledge and direction. Thus, by implication, they would speak wisdom to church members in Corinth.