I don’t read anywhere in the New Testament that Jesus or the Apostles engaged in ‘spiritual warfare’, binding demons BEFORE they could minister freely somewhere. Talking to our Heavenly Father, yes. Seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit, yes. Because, through Jesus, by the Spirit we have DIRECT access to the Father - Eph 2.18! The promise of the Father is that when we receive the Holy Spirit, we receive power to become Christ’s witnesses, anywhere on earth, wherever He calls us - Acts 1.4-5,8! It’s simple.
Paul, writing the believers in the pagan city of Corinth, said, 1 Cor 2, “When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you, except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” That’s a powerful statement! I’m sorry to say that today our preachers preach all sorts of things that I would question.
But Paul is very simple. Though he was a highly educated Jew with Roman citizenship from the city of Tarsus in Asia Minor, though he was a Pharisee, trained to a very high degree in Jewish Scripture, theology, teachings and traditions, and equipped with much ‘eloquence and superior wisdom’ from his studies in Jerusalem - when he came to these Corinthians, he came very simply, resolved to know and preach nothing else, but Christ and His Crucifixion.
This is a challenge to the Church today, because I fear we’ve gone far away from the basics. Being an evangelist, I need to stick to basics. In my 75/76 years of ministry, I’ve ministered to all sorts of people. In the earlier years under communism I was dealing with people who knew NOTHING about the Bible. Can you imagine? In the Soviet Union there were no Bibles! Churches that did exist and that were preaching the Truth, were persecuted, forced ‘underground’ and illegal. So the vast majority of the population had no knowledge at all of the Bible! That’s why I spent those early years smuggling Bibles - 2 tonnes at a time - because even in the churches, church members only had access to hand-copied pages! I have one such precious page beautifully mounted on a piece of varnished wood in my home!
Paul had great learning in all things religious, but he resolved to bring to the pagan city of Corinth nothing but Christ and Him crucified! We need to come back to this simple Gospel! I wasn’t educated to the same high level as Paul, but I had a good education and I’m very glad of it. To become ordained as pastor, I had to study for 5 years. And some years ago I was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity, but not for study - for my life’s work as an evangelist. Because our message is simple: Christ crucified.
So Paul is saying, he didn’t come as a talented speaker, but, v3, he came ‘in weakness and fear and much trembling’. Why? Perhaps because even here in pagan Corinth, Paul is also facing up to educated Orthodox Jews, trained as he had been, who rejected the crucified Messiah and persecuted His followers. So he’s ‘in weakness’, because he wants to present something he hadn’t been brought up with, that he himself had violently rejected, but was more powerful than anything he’d ever known. He didn’t use wise and persuasive words - no, he came with a demonstration of the Spirit’s Power! Why? So that their faith might not rest on men’s wisdom but on God’s Power!
What we need in our Christian ministry is a practical demonstration of God’s Power. Not just words. I was a pastor for 15 years. One day God said to me, “I’m tired of listening to you. Stop talking. Go out and put into practice what you preach. And don’t come back until you’ve done it!” That’s why I’ve spent 60 years of my life ‘out there’, doing it. And I’m still doing it!
My faith is not built on what I was taught in Bible School, nor on what I heard from preachers. My faith is built on God’s Power, on the demonstration that God answers prayer and has Power on earth.
Paul says, v11ff, “No one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God…” Ah hah… “But 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 humanly where all the Bible colleges in world, all the teachings and doctrines of the churches fail us. Paul says, v13ff, “What we speak is not words taught by human wisdom, but by the Spirit... The man who doesn’t have the Spirit doesn’t accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, he cannot understand them, because they have to be spiritually discerned.”
Human beings do not understand the things of God. They don’t! To the world, the teachings of Christ are foolish. But when we have the Holy Spirit, HE explains and reveals the Truth to us, so that a spiritual man, v15, is able to make judgements about all things. We HAVE to have the Holy Spirit! It is the Holy Spirit within us who reveals the mind of God.
I need the Holy Spirit to reveal to me what God’s Will and Plan are! This doesn’t come through the teaching of men. What I have and what I do comes directly from the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God. He knows the mind of God. You and I - we don’t know the mind of God. The Holy Spirit does and will reveal it to us!
V16, “Who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” We cannot instruct God, His ways are above ours, we cannot tell God what to do, we cannot command the Holy Spirit. But we need to have the mind of Christ in order to know the Will of God. Like a married couple In love for many years, the wife doesn’t have to ask the husband every day, what do you want? She knows what he wants. If you are not close enough to Lord to know what He wants, then get close, get a stronger relationship with Him, because when we live in contact with Him through the Holy Spirit, we will have the mind of Christ!
O Lord, that educated Jew, Paul, had nothing until he came to know YOU. Give us Your Holy Spirit that we might have the mind of Christ and do Your Will. Amen.