speaker-0: Well, the the first chapter has I think set up so much for us yes and understanding what's going to follow. Yes. And we know that it's Paul writing and he's writing to the folks at Colranth who are he's writing to Christians at Coloranth, not the outsiders. And then we know that who his God is because he goes out of his way to identify that his God is not two or three persons, but his God is the Father. And then who his Lord is. different story there. His Lord is Jesus the Messiah, the Christ. I love all that. I love that. He sets all that up. He gives thanks for the people. he and then he goes into right away that there are divisions in the church. that the the folks are not all cohesive. They're not holding together in in one. And how important that is so we talked about that. Then he talks about the and I guess one follows the other here, but he talks about the significance of the wisdom of God in comparison to the wisdom of God.
speaker-1: So called wisdom is really nothing but folly and stupidity. That's wonderful. Yeah, we can mention of course that Paul in Romans talks about the God of the Jews is the same as the God of the Gentiles. wow. There's no difference. I mean to have to do a new doctrine of God in the new is a nightmare. There's never a suggestion. See how difficult that would be? It takes books like Galatians to redefine the law, you know, there's a huge change. You don't need to be physically circumcised. If you're gonna change the nature of God, you're gonna have to have books, chapters, galore to do that. Yes. That's not an issue. The God of the Hebrew Bible is the God of Jews, the God of David, The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the God of Paul and the God of everybody. Right. Relax, you know. Isn't that wonderfully relaxing? Take that in. Then also he says, I'm thanking Jesus for putting me in ministry at one point. So you can thank Jesus. That's prayer to Jesus. I grant that most prayers are after the Father through I get that. Sure. But you don't need to panic and say, you know, I might get struck down if I prayed to Jesus. John fourteen, fourteen, not in the King James, unfortunately, but then If Jesus said, if you ask me anything in my name, I'll do it. That's reasonable. You can do that too.
speaker-0: Absolutely. and I think all of that characteristic of this one whom God has raised up from the dead, set at his own right hand in heavenly places, and said, Set here while I make your enemies your foes your footstool. Yes, how that All power, all authority is vested now in him. That's I love that.
speaker-1: I love that. It's I got attacked yesterday on this session we had with the public 'cause I said the the Psalm hundred ten one there is a classic text. It's an umbrella text. James Dunn says it runs like a golden thread. Mm. And they didn't like that. And I thought, well statistically, you can show that it's quoted more than any other verse, about twenty-three times, and if you add the bit about the high priesthood, about thirty-three times There's no verse from the Old Testament that's quoted to that massive so that is classic. Come on. Absolutely. Statistically it's massive but you don't hear it preached on very clearly.
speaker-0: And and here that is, so clear and so prominent in the New Testament. But then I hear the folks who want to try to find more than one going and finding some scripture text or point that is never ever even quoted in the New Testament. my lands, but here they go. I found a place, maybe this means that that there's more than one who is gone. So this is
speaker-1: So as you say that I'm thinking of Genesis nineteen twenty four, which some of the early church fathers we've got Yahweh reigning brimstone from Yahweh. we got a verse now. Two Yahweh's Wait a minute. It also says that Solomon gathered the people of Solomon. Yes. It's a simple Hebraic idiom. But people will clutch at any straw to maintain the status quo. Scary
speaker-0: Yes, yes.
speaker-1: part of what we see often.
speaker-0: Wow. And you come up with these very strange things and and the people are mesmerizing all that instead of saying, by the way, where did anyone ever say that in the Bible? You know, where did where did anyone explain it your way in the Bible? otherwise we would have to conclude that you're just in yourself coming up with stuff.
speaker-1: I use that stat that you've got if you count up the words for God, the various words for God in the Bible, you've got eleven thousand. You've got Adonai, the Lord God, that is, you got Yahweh seven thousand times, you've got Theos, the Greek, and you've got Elohim. About eleven thousand occurrences. And you say to your friend, Show me one of those eleven thousand verses, which plainly means a triune or even a biune God. that's pretty amazing. So when they said God in the Bible, they didn't mean a triune God. Well that could be because they'd never heard of it.
speaker-0: Ha ha ha.
speaker-1: Imagine that.
speaker-0: Well, it's something else.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: Well let's continue then. Paul is writing to these folks and he says he has just said, Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord, for goodness sake. the second chapter in verse one, and I, when I came to see you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Verse three, and I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling. Verse 4, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. Verse 5: That your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men. But the power of God. I love that. Isn't that
speaker-1: Marvelous. Isn't that powerful? What can you imagine that could rank
speaker-0: Like this.
speaker-1: and when he says of course the only thing I ever said was that Jesus got crucified, that can be misunderstood. Surely. He surely talked about the resurrection of Jesus, didn't he? And he does say I didn't say anything except Jesus Messiah. Well, Messiah, that's a a loaded word, right? Everything about Messiah
speaker-0: Everything that relates to the messiah.
speaker-1: But again people you see will touch at any straw to maintain the status quo.
speaker-0: Yeah. I love this and I like I like this phrase, I say I like it, it's the plausible words, this plausible thing. And I was thinking the other day, many Christians are caught up in the world of plausibility. yeah. In other words, if someone says, but God is two or three and they think, Well, I guess he could be and well now you're now dealing with plausibilities. But not truth. Everything that's plausible is not true. And so you have to as you say, investigate for yourself.
speaker-1: I think they must. The exception is that well, you know, my pastor's been to school. Now he must be right. That's right. Never mind that the pastor down the road from a different school is saying the opposite. So you can toss out sayings like John Milton and John Locke and Sir Isaac Newton, mm-hmm, who were the brightest brains, as we all recognise, of their century. They were all vigorous anti Trinitarian people. That's extremely They don't know that.
speaker-0: Yes. And people don't realize that. Yeah.
speaker-1: That's right. That's amazing. I mean you can't just dismiss that with a way of the hand. Isaac Newton is an extraordinary brain. John Milton, the poet, is an extraordinary brain. John Locke, hugely influential. They were very exercised, I think Karen Armstrong in her book on on the history of God says Isaac Newton was obsessed with this awful what he called the the doctrine of ye three gods of the West or something. He was determined to undermine that. Well yes he could be wrong, but I mean it's worth considering he might have had a point for something. Good reason.
speaker-0: Well.
speaker-1: I I'm reminded in Luke just referring to what Paul did customarily in Acts nineteen verse eight. Paul went to the synagogue and over the course of the next three months spoke boldly to those who were there, engaging in dialogue with them and trying to persuade them about the gospel of the kingdom of God. Isn't that interesting?
speaker-0: yes. beautiful. That's amazing. Yes.
speaker-1: In that and then in Acts seventeen He goes to the marketplace. The internet is the marketplace. And he lobbies people. Hey, come and talk to me about this. And people say, no, you just venturedism is just smiling at people. Well, it's nice to smile at people, but that's not going to cut it. Get in there and dialogue with them for the ocean good. I mean if you and I would not be, with the degree of understanding which we hope we've achieved, if some kind person hadn't tapped us on the shoulder and said, Wait minute, have you really thought this through? Isn't that right?
speaker-0: That's right.
speaker-1: If they just smiled. Well that would have been nice, but might not have been very helpful.
speaker-0: I think it's it's a a pretty great misunderstanding to think that the message doesn't have to really be preached, spoken and elaborated from the scriptures.
speaker-1: I'm not keen on that saying, you know, do evangelism if necessary use words. What's that about? Paul was there daily millions of words. Yes. Why not? If God wants to do it by persuading why not?
speaker-0: That's right. Verse six. Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age, or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. Those rulers and that wisdom are passing away, and we don't want to put stock in that. No.
speaker-1: So exactly, good one.
speaker-0: Verse 7: But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God. Which God decreed before the ages for our glory. Wow. None of the rulers of this age understood this. Or if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord above. Wow.
speaker-1: Why string him up on a cross? And he's got the secret to mortality that is not wise. I like that thing about The glory planned, because they use John 17, 5, you know, glorify me now with the glory which I had. there you go. He was glorified. Doesn't say anything about giving back the glory, but it's the glory that was planned for us before the foundation. That's a helpful one, right? Peter talks about the inheritance laid up as treasure. yes. Jesus said in Matthew 6 there, if you don't pray right, then you have no presentance, you have no treasure in heaven, meaning your reward. Treasured up. This is a very hebraic way of thinking. It's beautiful, isn't it? The whole thing is stored up in God's plan. So glorify me now with the glory which I had, that's to say, in your great plan. Right. That same glory as we mentioned yesterday in John 17, verses 22 and 24, has already been given, Jesus said, to those people not yet born.
speaker-0: Well, yes, yes.
speaker-1: That shows how very limp and feeble it is to read the text as though it's good American English of our century or good British English. It's not. These are Hib Hebrews speaking Hebraic.
speaker-0: Yes, absolutely. Wow. Mm-hmm. He says, But as it is written, what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him. Glory prepared. Isn't that lovely? These things, he says in verse ten, God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
speaker-1: That's wonderful quite yes. And that verse is often omitted. You hear people reading, No one has ever seen, no one has ever heard. To no one has it ever been imaginable what God has prepared for those who love him. Stop.
speaker-0: Yes. But he didn't stop, did he?
speaker-1: But God has revealed those things and that's the essence of hope and we have to stress that hope according to Colossians one, four and five, hope is the springboard of love and faith. So if you're short of love and faith, it's because you don't have the hope. Isn't that modest? We should be driven by hope. If you think your hope is to play a harp on a pink light when you die, you're poisoned.
speaker-0: This may not be very motivational.
speaker-1: It's not driving it. Then your faith is weak. And your love is weak. Try getting the Christian hope, the glory prepared, you know, to rule in the kingdom of God on the earth with Jesus when he comes back, to fix the world on a grand scale. See if that might drive your faith and your love a little bit. I think it's an interesting point. Yeah.
speaker-0: Verse eleven, for who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? Yes. So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the spirit of God.
speaker-1: So the spirit is the thoughts, is it's the self-consciousness of God and of ourselves. Not a third person. Right. Not another person than you. There's no evidence of a third person never gets worshipped, spirit never gets worshipped, never sends any greetings. How about the spirit being the the operational presence of God expressing himself? So you're tapping into the very mind of God and of Christ by reading scripture.
speaker-0: So he says in verse twelve, now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, which is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. I like that. Verse thirteen, and we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit. Yes. Interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
speaker-1: John 663, the words that I speak to you are vectors of life. There's that famous thing in in 2 Samuel 23, where David is the sweet singer of Israel, and he says, The word of God is on my lips, the spirit of God. They go together. Once you tear spirit away from word, you're sailing into unknown, vague, stormy territory territory.
speaker-0: Exactly. Exactly.
speaker-1: Spirit must be controlled by intelligible.
speaker-0: Absolutely. Verse 14. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God. Yes. For they're folly to him. He doesn't he doesn't get it. He doesn't he doesn't understand. And he's not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Verse 15. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. sixteen for who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. I like that.
speaker-1: How would you like to think like Jesus? my god. Not only would what would Jesus do, what would Jesus think and say? I love that. I if I may, I want to refer to Isaiah nine there. the entire vision this is the sad state of affairs at least in the time of Isaiah, the entire vision were given like the words of a sealed book to some people, which when they give it to the one who is literate or learned, he says, and you say, please read this and he says, I cannot. I d I don't understand this. It's to you. So then you take the book and you give it to the one who is illiterate, you know the so called less trained, not formally trained, saying, Would you please read this? And he'll say, I can't read it. I don't understand it. Then the Lord said, Because these people draw near with their words and honour me with their lip service, and they remove their heart or mind far from me, and their reverence for me consists of tradition learned by rote.
speaker-0: Wow. my goodness.
speaker-1: how about that? That strike home?
speaker-0: My goodness. It he just described some of the great problems we have with our with Christianity today. That's right.
speaker-1: Just And and then it finally says here, therefore, behold, God is going to deal marvelously with these people. It was F. F. Bruce who wrote to many years ago in he's very kind to write personal letters in his own handwriting. He said, Many evangelical Christians believe that they are doing solar scriptura which in fact is nothing more than a traditional interpretation. You see how wise that was?
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: So be careful, say now what I'm getting from the pastor or my reading and so on, is this really Kingdom of God, one God stuff? Does it sound like Jesus? If it doesn't, that's the cause for alarm. That's the time to get worried.
speaker-0: Amazing. Yes it is. Paul's theme about the wisdom of God versus the wisdom of man follows all through these passages that we've been reading. And that's sort of his underlying his underlying. And not by man's wisdom does these things come, but by the wisdom of God.
speaker-1: It is a matter of study though, isn't it? I mean not not to be overintellectual, heaven forbid. But on the other hand, to say that that church experience is simply just an emotional frenzy which you lay on every week, i is very wrong. I like the text where I think John in his epistle says that Jesus came to give us a mind, an understanding that we should know God. That's the strongest intellectual word in the Greek language. Why not? I mean, didn't God give us a brain for goodness sake?
speaker-0: Why did he do that? Why did he bother?
speaker-1: It is all a matter of s of emotion, not that we should be without emotion, I understand that.
speaker-0: I like that all of this ties back to the statement Paul made in the first chapter in verse thirty. Yes. Where he talks about you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God. So we want to know about God, we want to know about the wisdom of God. Christ Jesus is the fount, the source of that.
speaker-1: Rather approachable because he is a member of the human race.
speaker-0: Yes, absolutely.
speaker-1: He's not got it made by being fully God, a hundred percent God, hundred percent man, whate whatever
speaker-0: Whatever the kids.
speaker-1: not much. He's really a human being. supernaturally, not just a human being, not a mere whatever that's supposed to be, a mere human being. He's a a virginly begotten human being with some component in his genes that is indescribable. I we have to analyze all that. But he gets it right all the time. Sinless human being. That's good enough for me if God determines that's the one he wants to Absolutely I'll go with that.
speaker-0: I'm in for that. so when we when he's saying at the conclusion of the second chapter but we have the mind of Christ speaking of himself and the others with him and and those who are preaching the message there, the Because God has put his wisdom in Christ. Yes. When we say we have the mind of Christ, if you can say that, then you're saying something very mighty. Now you know that you have the mind of Christ means you have the mind of God. Not that Christ is God, but God placed his mind in Christ. Yes. His understanding, His wisdom in Christ to us.
speaker-1: Mm, this is where meditation comes in. I mean hopefully people reading this would wake up in the morning with these things coursing through the
speaker-0: my land, yes.
speaker-1: This is what is this? We've got the mind of us. I used to point out to the students in the college there that he's actually quoting from Isaiah 40, verse 13, where the Hebrew text talks about the Spirit of God. And in the Septuagint, it's the mind of God. Yes, yes. And so for Paul it makes a difference. The spirit of God is closely linked to the way Jesus and God are thinking. And that requires meditation. It has to be internalized. You don't get it by putting one verse on the fridge and hoping for the best. That's right. You've got to sit down because I I think Americans, particularly the this election time, has shown the intensity is is is very refreshing in a way, right? The energy the intensity that people put into deciding who's going to be the next president for four or eight years, right? What about the intensity that's owed to Messiah holes in his hands?
speaker-0: my lens, yeah.
speaker-1: God your right to live forever or not.
speaker-0: Yes. Well, that's right. How about that? That's right. one thing I like here too that sometimes I've heard this misstated in verse nine some. but as it is written what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor heart of man imagined. what God has prepared for those who love him. I've heard that quoted out of context. And they miss the fact that there is this huge shift coming up in the next words. These things God has revealed.
speaker-1: No, that's exactly I've heard that stop right there. We don't know. We can't know. Wait a minute. God has revealed it if you'll take the trouble to study
speaker-0: Is the whole deal here.
speaker-1: it. It's the parable of the so, you know, that God has res has made known these mysteries that are hidden. Well get busy and seek them out. Yes. In order to have that one.
speaker-0: Yes, you're exactly
speaker-1: There's nothing to be compared with that. Well it's yeah. It's something utterly overwhelmingly profound worth having. Yeah.
speaker-1: So called wisdom is really nothing but folly and stupidity. That's wonderful. Yeah, we can mention of course that Paul in Romans talks about the God of the Jews is the same as the God of the Gentiles. wow. There's no difference. I mean to have to do a new doctrine of God in the new is a nightmare. There's never a suggestion. See how difficult that would be? It takes books like Galatians to redefine the law, you know, there's a huge change. You don't need to be physically circumcised. If you're gonna change the nature of God, you're gonna have to have books, chapters, galore to do that. Yes. That's not an issue. The God of the Hebrew Bible is the God of Jews, the God of David, The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the God of Paul and the God of everybody. Right. Relax, you know. Isn't that wonderfully relaxing? Take that in. Then also he says, I'm thanking Jesus for putting me in ministry at one point. So you can thank Jesus. That's prayer to Jesus. I grant that most prayers are after the Father through I get that. Sure. But you don't need to panic and say, you know, I might get struck down if I prayed to Jesus. John fourteen, fourteen, not in the King James, unfortunately, but then If Jesus said, if you ask me anything in my name, I'll do it. That's reasonable. You can do that too.
speaker-0: Absolutely. and I think all of that characteristic of this one whom God has raised up from the dead, set at his own right hand in heavenly places, and said, Set here while I make your enemies your foes your footstool. Yes, how that All power, all authority is vested now in him. That's I love that.
speaker-1: I love that. It's I got attacked yesterday on this session we had with the public 'cause I said the the Psalm hundred ten one there is a classic text. It's an umbrella text. James Dunn says it runs like a golden thread. Mm. And they didn't like that. And I thought, well statistically, you can show that it's quoted more than any other verse, about twenty-three times, and if you add the bit about the high priesthood, about thirty-three times There's no verse from the Old Testament that's quoted to that massive so that is classic. Come on. Absolutely. Statistically it's massive but you don't hear it preached on very clearly.
speaker-0: And and here that is, so clear and so prominent in the New Testament. But then I hear the folks who want to try to find more than one going and finding some scripture text or point that is never ever even quoted in the New Testament. my lands, but here they go. I found a place, maybe this means that that there's more than one who is gone. So this is
speaker-1: So as you say that I'm thinking of Genesis nineteen twenty four, which some of the early church fathers we've got Yahweh reigning brimstone from Yahweh. we got a verse now. Two Yahweh's Wait a minute. It also says that Solomon gathered the people of Solomon. Yes. It's a simple Hebraic idiom. But people will clutch at any straw to maintain the status quo. Scary
speaker-0: Yes, yes.
speaker-1: part of what we see often.
speaker-0: Wow. And you come up with these very strange things and and the people are mesmerizing all that instead of saying, by the way, where did anyone ever say that in the Bible? You know, where did where did anyone explain it your way in the Bible? otherwise we would have to conclude that you're just in yourself coming up with stuff.
speaker-1: I use that stat that you've got if you count up the words for God, the various words for God in the Bible, you've got eleven thousand. You've got Adonai, the Lord God, that is, you got Yahweh seven thousand times, you've got Theos, the Greek, and you've got Elohim. About eleven thousand occurrences. And you say to your friend, Show me one of those eleven thousand verses, which plainly means a triune or even a biune God. that's pretty amazing. So when they said God in the Bible, they didn't mean a triune God. Well that could be because they'd never heard of it.
speaker-0: Ha ha ha.
speaker-1: Imagine that.
speaker-0: Well, it's something else.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: Well let's continue then. Paul is writing to these folks and he says he has just said, Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord, for goodness sake. the second chapter in verse one, and I, when I came to see you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Verse three, and I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling. Verse 4, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. Verse 5: That your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men. But the power of God. I love that. Isn't that
speaker-1: Marvelous. Isn't that powerful? What can you imagine that could rank
speaker-0: Like this.
speaker-1: and when he says of course the only thing I ever said was that Jesus got crucified, that can be misunderstood. Surely. He surely talked about the resurrection of Jesus, didn't he? And he does say I didn't say anything except Jesus Messiah. Well, Messiah, that's a a loaded word, right? Everything about Messiah
speaker-0: Everything that relates to the messiah.
speaker-1: But again people you see will touch at any straw to maintain the status quo.
speaker-0: Yeah. I love this and I like I like this phrase, I say I like it, it's the plausible words, this plausible thing. And I was thinking the other day, many Christians are caught up in the world of plausibility. yeah. In other words, if someone says, but God is two or three and they think, Well, I guess he could be and well now you're now dealing with plausibilities. But not truth. Everything that's plausible is not true. And so you have to as you say, investigate for yourself.
speaker-1: I think they must. The exception is that well, you know, my pastor's been to school. Now he must be right. That's right. Never mind that the pastor down the road from a different school is saying the opposite. So you can toss out sayings like John Milton and John Locke and Sir Isaac Newton, mm-hmm, who were the brightest brains, as we all recognise, of their century. They were all vigorous anti Trinitarian people. That's extremely They don't know that.
speaker-0: Yes. And people don't realize that. Yeah.
speaker-1: That's right. That's amazing. I mean you can't just dismiss that with a way of the hand. Isaac Newton is an extraordinary brain. John Milton, the poet, is an extraordinary brain. John Locke, hugely influential. They were very exercised, I think Karen Armstrong in her book on on the history of God says Isaac Newton was obsessed with this awful what he called the the doctrine of ye three gods of the West or something. He was determined to undermine that. Well yes he could be wrong, but I mean it's worth considering he might have had a point for something. Good reason.
speaker-0: Well.
speaker-1: I I'm reminded in Luke just referring to what Paul did customarily in Acts nineteen verse eight. Paul went to the synagogue and over the course of the next three months spoke boldly to those who were there, engaging in dialogue with them and trying to persuade them about the gospel of the kingdom of God. Isn't that interesting?
speaker-0: yes. beautiful. That's amazing. Yes.
speaker-1: In that and then in Acts seventeen He goes to the marketplace. The internet is the marketplace. And he lobbies people. Hey, come and talk to me about this. And people say, no, you just venturedism is just smiling at people. Well, it's nice to smile at people, but that's not going to cut it. Get in there and dialogue with them for the ocean good. I mean if you and I would not be, with the degree of understanding which we hope we've achieved, if some kind person hadn't tapped us on the shoulder and said, Wait minute, have you really thought this through? Isn't that right?
speaker-0: That's right.
speaker-1: If they just smiled. Well that would have been nice, but might not have been very helpful.
speaker-0: I think it's it's a a pretty great misunderstanding to think that the message doesn't have to really be preached, spoken and elaborated from the scriptures.
speaker-1: I'm not keen on that saying, you know, do evangelism if necessary use words. What's that about? Paul was there daily millions of words. Yes. Why not? If God wants to do it by persuading why not?
speaker-0: That's right. Verse six. Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age, or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. Those rulers and that wisdom are passing away, and we don't want to put stock in that. No.
speaker-1: So exactly, good one.
speaker-0: Verse 7: But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God. Which God decreed before the ages for our glory. Wow. None of the rulers of this age understood this. Or if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord above. Wow.
speaker-1: Why string him up on a cross? And he's got the secret to mortality that is not wise. I like that thing about The glory planned, because they use John 17, 5, you know, glorify me now with the glory which I had. there you go. He was glorified. Doesn't say anything about giving back the glory, but it's the glory that was planned for us before the foundation. That's a helpful one, right? Peter talks about the inheritance laid up as treasure. yes. Jesus said in Matthew 6 there, if you don't pray right, then you have no presentance, you have no treasure in heaven, meaning your reward. Treasured up. This is a very hebraic way of thinking. It's beautiful, isn't it? The whole thing is stored up in God's plan. So glorify me now with the glory which I had, that's to say, in your great plan. Right. That same glory as we mentioned yesterday in John 17, verses 22 and 24, has already been given, Jesus said, to those people not yet born.
speaker-0: Well, yes, yes.
speaker-1: That shows how very limp and feeble it is to read the text as though it's good American English of our century or good British English. It's not. These are Hib Hebrews speaking Hebraic.
speaker-0: Yes, absolutely. Wow. Mm-hmm. He says, But as it is written, what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him. Glory prepared. Isn't that lovely? These things, he says in verse ten, God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
speaker-1: That's wonderful quite yes. And that verse is often omitted. You hear people reading, No one has ever seen, no one has ever heard. To no one has it ever been imaginable what God has prepared for those who love him. Stop.
speaker-0: Yes. But he didn't stop, did he?
speaker-1: But God has revealed those things and that's the essence of hope and we have to stress that hope according to Colossians one, four and five, hope is the springboard of love and faith. So if you're short of love and faith, it's because you don't have the hope. Isn't that modest? We should be driven by hope. If you think your hope is to play a harp on a pink light when you die, you're poisoned.
speaker-0: This may not be very motivational.
speaker-1: It's not driving it. Then your faith is weak. And your love is weak. Try getting the Christian hope, the glory prepared, you know, to rule in the kingdom of God on the earth with Jesus when he comes back, to fix the world on a grand scale. See if that might drive your faith and your love a little bit. I think it's an interesting point. Yeah.
speaker-0: Verse eleven, for who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? Yes. So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the spirit of God.
speaker-1: So the spirit is the thoughts, is it's the self-consciousness of God and of ourselves. Not a third person. Right. Not another person than you. There's no evidence of a third person never gets worshipped, spirit never gets worshipped, never sends any greetings. How about the spirit being the the operational presence of God expressing himself? So you're tapping into the very mind of God and of Christ by reading scripture.
speaker-0: So he says in verse twelve, now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, which is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. I like that. Verse thirteen, and we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit. Yes. Interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
speaker-1: John 663, the words that I speak to you are vectors of life. There's that famous thing in in 2 Samuel 23, where David is the sweet singer of Israel, and he says, The word of God is on my lips, the spirit of God. They go together. Once you tear spirit away from word, you're sailing into unknown, vague, stormy territory territory.
speaker-0: Exactly. Exactly.
speaker-1: Spirit must be controlled by intelligible.
speaker-0: Absolutely. Verse 14. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God. Yes. For they're folly to him. He doesn't he doesn't get it. He doesn't he doesn't understand. And he's not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Verse 15. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. sixteen for who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. I like that.
speaker-1: How would you like to think like Jesus? my god. Not only would what would Jesus do, what would Jesus think and say? I love that. I if I may, I want to refer to Isaiah nine there. the entire vision this is the sad state of affairs at least in the time of Isaiah, the entire vision were given like the words of a sealed book to some people, which when they give it to the one who is literate or learned, he says, and you say, please read this and he says, I cannot. I d I don't understand this. It's to you. So then you take the book and you give it to the one who is illiterate, you know the so called less trained, not formally trained, saying, Would you please read this? And he'll say, I can't read it. I don't understand it. Then the Lord said, Because these people draw near with their words and honour me with their lip service, and they remove their heart or mind far from me, and their reverence for me consists of tradition learned by rote.
speaker-0: Wow. my goodness.
speaker-1: how about that? That strike home?
speaker-0: My goodness. It he just described some of the great problems we have with our with Christianity today. That's right.
speaker-1: Just And and then it finally says here, therefore, behold, God is going to deal marvelously with these people. It was F. F. Bruce who wrote to many years ago in he's very kind to write personal letters in his own handwriting. He said, Many evangelical Christians believe that they are doing solar scriptura which in fact is nothing more than a traditional interpretation. You see how wise that was?
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: So be careful, say now what I'm getting from the pastor or my reading and so on, is this really Kingdom of God, one God stuff? Does it sound like Jesus? If it doesn't, that's the cause for alarm. That's the time to get worried.
speaker-0: Amazing. Yes it is. Paul's theme about the wisdom of God versus the wisdom of man follows all through these passages that we've been reading. And that's sort of his underlying his underlying. And not by man's wisdom does these things come, but by the wisdom of God.
speaker-1: It is a matter of study though, isn't it? I mean not not to be overintellectual, heaven forbid. But on the other hand, to say that that church experience is simply just an emotional frenzy which you lay on every week, i is very wrong. I like the text where I think John in his epistle says that Jesus came to give us a mind, an understanding that we should know God. That's the strongest intellectual word in the Greek language. Why not? I mean, didn't God give us a brain for goodness sake?
speaker-0: Why did he do that? Why did he bother?
speaker-1: It is all a matter of s of emotion, not that we should be without emotion, I understand that.
speaker-0: I like that all of this ties back to the statement Paul made in the first chapter in verse thirty. Yes. Where he talks about you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God. So we want to know about God, we want to know about the wisdom of God. Christ Jesus is the fount, the source of that.
speaker-1: Rather approachable because he is a member of the human race.
speaker-0: Yes, absolutely.
speaker-1: He's not got it made by being fully God, a hundred percent God, hundred percent man, whate whatever
speaker-0: Whatever the kids.
speaker-1: not much. He's really a human being. supernaturally, not just a human being, not a mere whatever that's supposed to be, a mere human being. He's a a virginly begotten human being with some component in his genes that is indescribable. I we have to analyze all that. But he gets it right all the time. Sinless human being. That's good enough for me if God determines that's the one he wants to Absolutely I'll go with that.
speaker-0: I'm in for that. so when we when he's saying at the conclusion of the second chapter but we have the mind of Christ speaking of himself and the others with him and and those who are preaching the message there, the Because God has put his wisdom in Christ. Yes. When we say we have the mind of Christ, if you can say that, then you're saying something very mighty. Now you know that you have the mind of Christ means you have the mind of God. Not that Christ is God, but God placed his mind in Christ. Yes. His understanding, His wisdom in Christ to us.
speaker-1: Mm, this is where meditation comes in. I mean hopefully people reading this would wake up in the morning with these things coursing through the
speaker-0: my land, yes.
speaker-1: This is what is this? We've got the mind of us. I used to point out to the students in the college there that he's actually quoting from Isaiah 40, verse 13, where the Hebrew text talks about the Spirit of God. And in the Septuagint, it's the mind of God. Yes, yes. And so for Paul it makes a difference. The spirit of God is closely linked to the way Jesus and God are thinking. And that requires meditation. It has to be internalized. You don't get it by putting one verse on the fridge and hoping for the best. That's right. You've got to sit down because I I think Americans, particularly the this election time, has shown the intensity is is is very refreshing in a way, right? The energy the intensity that people put into deciding who's going to be the next president for four or eight years, right? What about the intensity that's owed to Messiah holes in his hands?
speaker-0: my lens, yeah.
speaker-1: God your right to live forever or not.
speaker-0: Yes. Well, that's right. How about that? That's right. one thing I like here too that sometimes I've heard this misstated in verse nine some. but as it is written what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor heart of man imagined. what God has prepared for those who love him. I've heard that quoted out of context. And they miss the fact that there is this huge shift coming up in the next words. These things God has revealed.
speaker-1: No, that's exactly I've heard that stop right there. We don't know. We can't know. Wait a minute. God has revealed it if you'll take the trouble to study
speaker-0: Is the whole deal here.
speaker-1: it. It's the parable of the so, you know, that God has res has made known these mysteries that are hidden. Well get busy and seek them out. Yes. In order to have that one.
speaker-0: Yes, you're exactly
speaker-1: There's nothing to be compared with that. Well it's yeah. It's something utterly overwhelmingly profound worth having. Yeah.
