1 Corinthians 02 Round Two: Wearing The Right Glasses

What if the problem isn’t the message but the glasses we’re wearing? Walking through 1 Corinthians 2, we explore why Paul chose trembling honesty over polished speeches and how that choice spotlights the raw power of the gospel. Instead of leaning on clever lines, Paul relied on the Holy Spirit to reveal what human wisdom can’t: God’s hidden plan that turns the world’s logic upside down. That lens doesn’t just change how we read Scripture—it changes how we see people, handle conflict, and make decisions that honor Christ.

Together we unpack how the rulers of the age missed the meaning of the cross, why true understanding is revealed rather than achieved, and what it looks like to live with the mind of Christ in everyday tensions. You’ll hear practical ways to trade pride for prayer, retaliation for intercession, and status for service. We talk about how spiritual sight reframes hurt—transforming enemies into neighbors to love—and how asking the Spirit for discernment brings clarity to tough choices, from strained relationships to daily habits in the Word.

If you’ve felt stuck in division, exhausted by debates, or frustrated that truth seems to bounce off people you care about, this conversation offers a better way: simple words, surrendered hearts, and the Spirit’s wisdom guiding a united church family. Listen for a fresh invitation to put on the right glasses, lean into prayer, and pursue harmony that reflects Jesus. If the message helped you, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs encouragement today.

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The More We Dig. The More We Find.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).
Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Chapters

• 0:00 Wearing The Right Glasses
• 1:13 Community And Calls To Connect
• 1:56 A Divided Church Needs Harmony
• 3:15 Reading 1 Corinthians Chapter 2
• 4:10 Power Over Rhetoric
• 5:18 God’s Hidden Wisdom Revealed
• 6:05 If They Had Known
• 6:50 The Spirit Reveals Deep Things
• 8:05 Spiritual Eyes And Church Unity
• 9:20 Pray For The Mind Of Christ
• 10:40 Closing Prayer And Next Steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. Every day, we take one chapter of the Bible, dig deeper, and discover that the more we dig, the more we find. You can find out more at the BibleBreakdown.com. Now let's grow in God's word together. Well, hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, 1 Corinthians chapter 2. And if I would give this one a title, it would be Wearing the Right Glasses. You ever, okay, if you don't wear glasses in here, then you're not going to probably relate to this, but if you've ever worn glasses before and you go to a place where they're trying on different ones, right? You put on one pair of glasses and they just don't look right. It seems like everything looks distorted and it looks wrong. Then you put the right glasses on and like, oh, now I can see. It's one of my favorite things about going to the eye doctor is it's hard to go, you know, one or two, three or four, you know, that whole thing. But then once it's over with, you can see. And it's so much better. And that is exactly what this chapter is all about, where Paul is trying to encourage the city of Corinth. Listen, you got to stop fighting with one another and you got to get on the same page. You got to make sure you're looking at the world through the right glasses. We're going to get into that in just a moment. But if you like what we're doing here, make sure you like, share, and subscribe to the YouTube channel on the podcast. Make sure you leave us a five-star review. It really does help. And then also for our rally point, the Facebook breakdown discussion on Facebook. It is amazing. I love what they're doing over there. And I would love for you to do me one more favor. I want you to go to my blog at brandandcannon.com. I want you to subscribe to my newsletter. It's free for you, but it also gives me an opportunity to connect with you in a different way. I sent out a weekly newsletter that kind of lets you know what my favorite Bible breakdown discussion was for that week, give you some resources if you want to dig deeper on some stuff and just generally connect with you in a different way. So if you'd like to do that, brandoncannon.com and subscribe to my newsletter. Okay? All right. Well, if you want to open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 2, remember what we talked about. If we were to give this whole book a theme, it would be a divided church family finds harmony together. It's almost like Pastor Paul. He has invited the whole church into his office. He said, Sit on my couch, we need to have a family therapy session. And in chapter one, he says that listen, man, Chloe's family, they sent word to me that you jokers are about to kill each other. And there's division everywhere because this is a port city where all these different nationalities and cultures and everything have come together and it's just not working out. And so Paul is trying his best to help them find some kind of middle ground. And that's what he's continuing to do in chapter two, where he is going to talk about how he came and he preached the message of the gospel. But the problem is that if you don't look at it through the eyes of faith and through the eyes of hope, you're going to get the wrong ideas about everything. And so we have to make sure that we're rallying around the right things with the right mindset. Make sure we got on the right glasses. So we're going to read this and see if God will speak to us. And we're going to find the reason why it's so important that when we go to God's word and we read God's word, that we pray and ask God to open our spiritual eyes so we can see. So let's read this together and see what God's Word will say to us. First Corinthians chapter 2, verse 1 says, When I first came to you, dear brothers and sisters, possibly about four or so years before them, I didn't use lofty words and impressive wisdom to tell you God's secret plan. For I decided that while I was with you, I would forget everything except Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified. I came to you in weakness, timid, and trembling. And my message and preaching were very plain. Rather than using clever or persuasive speeches, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit, and I did this so you would trust not in human wisdom, but in the power of God. Now pause real quick. The reason why that's interesting is Paul was a genius. He was trained up under a guy named Gamaliel, who is one of the smartest people in Jerusalem at the time. It would have been almost like getting your uh doctorate from Harvard. I mean, extremely smart, could speak multiple language languages, could do all these wonderful things. And then Paul said, I took all of that education I had and I put it to the side, and I tried to be as clear and as plain as I possibly could, because I didn't want you to be impressed by my knowledge. I wanted you to be impressed by the simple, powerful gospel that nothing else can even come close to. So then he says, verse six, yet when I am among mutual believers, mature believers, I do speak with words of wisdom, but not the kind of wisdom that belongs to this world or to the rulers of this world who are soon forgotten. No, the wisdom that we speak of is the mystery of God, his plan that was previously hidden, even though he made it for our ultimate glory before the world began. But the rulers of this world have not understood it. If they had, they would have never crucified our glorious Lord. Now pause again. That's one of the things that was so interesting about the life of Jesus. Notice how he said that if the rulers of this world, that means not only just people that didn't know God, but then also uh demonic spiritual powers, if they had have known the plan of God, they would have never crucified our glorious Lord. So it was amazing, and it's one of the reasons why in some of the gospels that you can see that Jesus would tell them who he was, but he didn't declare his lordship and all of that right in the moment, was because the plan of God was so much greater. Now, you read the book of John, he does declare it, but not in such a way that would cause him to get on the radar that much of the Roman overlords and all this other stuff, was because he had a plan. And the plan wasn't to create an earthly kingdom at the moment, but to be the sacrifice for all people everywhere. And so that's what Paul is saying is if they had any idea that they were playing into God's plan this whole time, they would have never played along. But it's because it was a mystery that they played along with it, and now it has been revealed to everybody. Verse 9, that is what scripture means when they say, No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. But it was to us God revealed these things by his spirit. For his spirit searches out everything and shows us God's deep secrets. No one can know a person's thought except for the person's own spirit, and no one can know God's thoughts except God's own spirit. And we have received God's spirit, not the world's spirit, so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us. When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit's wisdom to explain spiritual truths. But people who aren't spiritual can't receive these truths from God's Spirit. It all sounds like foolishness to them when they can't understand it. For only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means. For those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others. For who can know the Lord's thoughts? Who knows enough to teach him? But we know these things because we have the mind of Christ. Now, what Paul is saying is that the plan that God had. Have you ever been in a situation where you have been trying to share the gospel with someone, trying to tell them about God's love, tell them what God's done in your life, and they don't care. They're just like, uh, yeah, good for you, don't care. But then are there times when you have shared your heart with somebody, you share the gospel with them, you share that God loved you and gave you new life, and he wants to do that for them, and you can just tell they're receiving it. It's because it's the Holy Spirit that draws us to himself, that he is pulling at our hearts, and we can resist him, but it's him that's constantly pulling us. That's why your your job really isn't to save anybody, that's God's job. Your job is to be faithful, to share your story with others. And that's what Paul is saying is he's saying we've got to get our spiritual eyes here. Because in the context of the church in Corinth, there's so much division and so many things. And what he's going to go on to tell them is that in other places, in worldly places, okay, divisions. Do this kind of stuff, fight for your rights, all this kind of stuff. But when it comes to this community, this is a spiritual thing. We are we come together because of our shared love for God. So therefore, we have to get our right glasses on. We don't put our worldly glasses on, we put our spiritual glasses on so that we can see what God is trying to do in the plan of God. And part of that plan of God is in us living together in harmony. So we have to make sure that we don't see things as as we want to in the world. We see things the way God has done that in our life. And that's what maybe the lesson is for us today. And that is we have to be very careful that we don't leave God out of the process. Many times when we deal with conflict with one another, we think about what they did to us and what we need to get out of this and this kind of thing. But when we put on our spiritual eyes, we're able to understand that hurting people hurt people. You know, the reason why we're reaching back out and the reason why we're, you know, having an attitude or whatever is because they hurt us. And so we retaliate. It's possible that the reason why they're doing that to us is because they're hurting. Well, the way we're able to do that is when we put our spiritual eyes on and get the mind of Christ. One of the things I've noticed is that it's really hard to be mad at somebody you're praying for. Because if you're praying for them and praying God's blessing over them and you're you're praying all these wonderful spiritual things over them, you start to see them the way God sees them. And I think that's part of what Paul is doing, is he's trying to say the best way to perceive spiritual things is with spiritual eyes. And that doesn't just involve the plan of God, but it also involves our neighbor. Let me ask you this question as we get ready to pray. Where do you need to get the mind of Christ in your life? Is it over maybe a decision you need to make? Is it over a relationship you're struggling with right now? Maybe it's over just the consistency of reading your Bible every day. But as we pray, let's pray for God to give us the mind of Christ so we can see others the way He sees us. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for all you're doing in our lives. Thank you, God, that you are with us more than we can imagine, and that you love us and you love our neighbors as well. Lord, we know that in the context of this, Paul is teaching them about how you, Holy Spirit, give us eyes to see the deeper things and help us to understand things we could never understand on our own. I know also, God, that you help us to do that in our relationships with one another. And I pray, God, you'll give us eyes to see what you want us to see. Help us to see people the way you see people. Help us to know what our next steps are so that we can follow you more fully in our life. We thank you for all things. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. And amen. Family session, family therapy session is coming to an end. And God's word says this First Corinthians 10. So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God. I'll see you tomorrow for family therapy session number three, First Corinthians chapter three. I love you.