1 Corinthians 2:1-6(NKJV) 1And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. 2For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 3I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. 4And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. 6However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.
Yesterday we began looking at Paul’s words to the church at Corinth concerning the balance between the experiences generated by the work of the Holy Spirit and the consistency developed by a commitment to the Word of God. The conclusion Paul reveals is that we must begin with experience. He first came to them with a demonstration of the spirit and power and not with “enticing words of man’s wisdom.” The reason he gives is that it is important for our faith to rest in the power of God not the wisdom of men.
If we are going to be successful in our Christian walk we must know God not just know about God. That comes from meeting the Lord Jesus Christ on a personal level. Such a meeting must result in an experience. It may involve things like healing or miracles. It may simply be the supernatural touch of the Master’s hand. That was my experience.
I was not healed in my body. I did not have an emotional trauma that the Lord dealt with supernaturally. I did not see a miracle that proved to me that God was real. I was a normal, healthy teenager from a good home. We were neither rich nor poor. However, I knew that he had touched me. I knew that I felt a presence that I had never felt before. It began with a sense of his presence in a prayer meeting, and came to fullness when I was filled with the Holy Spirit and began to pray with other tongues.
When all this was happening I knew very little of the Bible. I had been raised Catholic. I was not a devout Catholic by any means. I was taught that Jesus was the Savior and I believed God was real, but as to any real knowledge of spiritual things, I had none. My faith did not rest on an intellectual understanding. It rested on an experience with the Lord that I could not deny. I believe every Christian must be able to say that or everything else will simply be an intellectual exercise.
There was a time early in my walk with the Lord when I began to waiver. I knew the Lord was real. My faith was resting on the experience I had, but my level of experience was low at that moment. I was discouraged. I did not feel the same presence as I had when I first chose to follow Jesus. I realized I needed something but I did not know what.
We had certain teachers and preachers we liked to follow. I particularly liked testimony books with exciting stories about what God had done for other people. However, we did not really study the Word of God. The Word was not a priority for us. We were young. We wanted excitement. The Bible did not seem to provide that kid of excitement very often. Nevertheless, at this low point, I needed something more.
I believe I was experiencing a need for what it takes to occupy our lives in Christ. Experience is necessary, but it is only the beginning. Exciting and emotional encounters are wonderful, but we all know that life cannot be lived from one exciting experience to the next. We are truly successful if we learn how to be victorious between exciting experiences. Christianity is life and life is every day. Most days are simply not that exciting. Some days are downright boring. What will sustain us on those days?
In the midst of this time, someone gave me some teaching tapes. I am sure we had heard teaching tapes before, but I cannot recall any. I liked recordings of Christian comedians, but teaching was not high on my list. These tapes seemed different. They were on our covenant relationship with God. I had never heard anything quite like them before. The teaching was very good, but more importantly it was the right teaching for me at the right time.
I remember that the teacher was saying many things I knew, but he was bringing a deeper understanding of some basic truths. It was as if I could feel my spirit drinking in the nourishment of the Word of God as I listened. Those tapes changed my life. What I learned was important. However, more important was the process of receiving revelation from the Lord.
I had had many experiences in the Lord. My faith was securely grounded upon the knowledge that God was real and I had experienced the touch of his hand in my life. That has never changed, but it was when I understood the need to receive revelation from God that I began to grow up in the Lord. It was then that my experience became consistent. It was with the revelation that came from the teaching of the Word of God that I began building stability in my Christianity.
It has been some 38 years since I listened to those tapes. I have listened to more teachings since that day than I can count. I have thousands of recorded teachings of my own. I have written books and this blog. I have been teaching the Word of God all over the world for the past 24 years. I know that faith must rest in experience. I also know that for experience to become stability and power, we need to add real teaching from the Bible.
Paul knew this. He pointed out to the Corinthians that they started out with experience. Sometimes we forget those initial experiences as we grow in biblical knowledge. The foundation of our faith must stay on the power of God. It can never shift to simple knowledge. However, Paul goes on to remind the Corinthians in verse 6 that he did teach them once they were saved.
1 Corinthians 2:6(NKJV) 6However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.
If we are going to occupy the ground we will possess in 2012, we must grow in our knowledge as well as our experience. If the enemies we drive out of our lives in 2012 are still going to be gone in 2013 we must have an active understanding of the truth of the Word of God. We must build on our experience with the Word. At the same time, we must keep the knowledge of the Word fresh by continuing to build our experience. It is not one or the other it is both.
We see in verse 6 that the kind of wisdom Paul is speaking is not the wisdom that can be learned from the world. Read the rest of this chapter. You will find that the things we need to learn are things no one in the natural world can teach us. They are spiritual truths and they must be spiritually learned. Paul tells us that to a man who is only able to understand in the natural, the things we must learn are foolishness. However, to us who are born of the Spirit they are life.
We must first have an experience with God, only then will we begin to understand the wisdom God gives. God is far too vast for us to ever fully comprehend him, but we can begin to understand him to a degree. This is possible because he will reveal himself to us by the Spirit. If we are not alive in spirit, we cannot understand what he is teaching us. Thank God for the last words of this chapter. Because we are alive in the spirit, we have the mind of Christ and can comprehend what he is trying to teach us today.
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