1 Corinthians 2.6-16

On Passion/Palm Sunday we will come back to 1 Cor 2.1-5. This Sunday, we will focus on the remainder of chapter 2.

One word can make all the difference in our understanding of the scriptures. In this case, the word "unspiritual" (v14) causes the problem. Unspiritual does not accurately translate the word psychikos. Nor does the "natural man" of the King James Version.

Paul intends to contrast the spirit and the psyche. The Greek means something more like the "psychological man" - the person who is focused on the inner self.

The psyche is not bad, but it is not the basis for life with God. The Spirit completes us. We have a human part and a God part. The human part is already there, filled with the human spirit. The spiritual part is empty, destroyed at the fall, filled in only when we receive the spirit of God.

The Corinth church was filled with people who believed they had spirit, and that others in the church did not. But that is a story for later in the book. His main purpose here is to orient us around the Spirit of God, the foundation of all true Wisdom.