1 Corinthians 2: 10-16
Brothers and sisters:
The Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual.
Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else’s scrutiny.
“For who has known the mind of the Lord
so as to instruct him?”
But we have the mind of Christ.
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Imitators of Christ
Paul insists today that “we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God.” But what about when this doesn’t feel true? I often feel beset by the “spirit of the world”—by cowardice, fear, injustice, stupidity, indifference, and every kind of sinful inclination. What can it mean that I indeed “have the mind of Christ” if I am still subject to these temptations?
To think this way, though, is to forget that Christ too was tempted in every way as we are, and yet never sinned (see Heb 4:15). Jesus knows through and through our struggles, because he lived them himself. Indeed, we have his mind—the same mind that, like our own, battled temptation, faced loss, and endured suffering.
May we truly be imitators of Christ, encouraged by his example and strengthened by the grace he offers us in our weaknesses.
—John Stein, SJ, is a Jesuit scholastic of the Midwest Province studying theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, give us your eyes to see like you,
give us your ears to hear like you,
give us your mind to think like you,
give us your heart to love like you. Amen.
—John Stein, SJ