Secret Wisdom?

I’ll admit it, there are some parts of the bible I don’t like.  This doesn’t mean I don’t accept them on faith, it just means there are areas in the bible where I hope to someday come into better emotional peace and intellectual understanding so I get the fuller meaning, or so that I feel comfortable talking about those sections with non-believers.  I won’t start listing all the parts of the bible I don’t like, though that in itself may be a good exercise for me someday to create a checklist for future study, but yesterday I did grow in understanding on one of these topics thanks to a sermon series I heard by Creflo Dollar.  I believe it was called the “Glory of God” or “Breakthrough to Glory” or something like that, I apologize I didn’t pay very close attention to the CD cover.

There are many places in the bible that use terms like “hidden secrets”, “secret wisdom”, and “mysteries of God”.  Whenever I come across verses that contain phrases like this I get a little upset.  If God wants us to know him, why keep anything hidden?  Why make anything a mystery?  Is it because we have to achieve some level of righteousness or understanding before these mysteries are reveled?  Are the mysteries reveled as a result of his doing or our accomplishment?  As you can see, these phrases drum up so many questions within me that I quickly become impatient and move on to the next paragraph or section to something that I can understand.

A few months ago I memorized 1 Cor 2:12 as part of the Topical Memory System.

¹² What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.

This verse sounds great by itself and is easily memorized, but to be honest I didn’t fully understand it in the context of the chapter because it has those mysterious phrases in them.  Rev Creflo had some very interesting assertions (pulling from supporting bible verses) that brought 1 Cor 2 into better focus for me.  I do not wish to completely duplicate Creflo’s sermon here, but instead to summarize it in my own words, mostly for my own means of retaining this revelation.

First thing I ask myself when reading 1 Cor 2:12 is what is it referring to when it says “what God has freely given us”?  I have always assumed this meant grace, the gift of his Son, the Holy Spirit, the riches of heaven, blessings on earth, etc…  By giving us his Spirit we can have understanding and give glory to our father and use this perspective to minister to others.  Seems well enough understood.  Verse 9 quotes a fairly famous verse from Isaiah that at first seemed to confirm this interpretation for me, also referring to these good things God has in store for us:

“What no eye has seen,
   what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”^[b]—
   the things God has prepared for those who love him—

But let’s take a closer look at a few of the verses in 1 Cor 2 and you’ll see that “what God has freely given us” actually refers to something altogether different.

In the first paragraph Paul says he talked to the Corinthians very plainly, not making persuasive speeches (4) because he was among new/non-believers (1).  But when he’s among mature Christians he does speak with “words of wisdom”, but not the kind of wisdom that is from the world, and not the kind of wisdom that appeals to rulers of this world (6).  Instead, Pauls says he speaks with a different kind of wisdom that is from God, a “secret wisdom, which was hidden in former times, though he made it for our benefit before the world began (7).” (NLT)   This is very interesting!  It says plainly that before God created the world, he created a special type of wisdom which was hidden from the world, but “destined it” (NIV) for our (those who love him (9)) benefit.  How do I know that this secret wisdom is what verse 12 is referring to?

Let’s continue with verse 9, Paul quotes Isaiah simply to strengthen his point in verse 8 that the rulers of this world have not understood this secret wisdom.

Verse 10 says “but we know these things because God has revealed them to us by his Spirit”.  What things?  It couldn’t simply be blessings, because blessings don’t necessarily require knowing or revealing.  No, these words describe a transfer of understanding.  What needs to be understood?  Something that was previously not understood.  Verse 10 is clearly referring to the secret wisdom mentioned in verse 7, but for further confirmation read the rest of verse 10, “and his Spirit searches out everything and shows us even God’s deep secrets.”  Wow!  God gives us his Spirit, and the Spirit shows us God’s deep secrets!  That begs the question, how does he show us?  How do we cash in on this promise?  Hold this question.

Verse 11:

No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. ¹² And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.

Wow again!  Giving us his Spirit is the only way we can know God’s thoughts and the wonderful things he has freely given us.  But what has he given?  Taken out of context, this verse would seem to suggest all of the great blessings I previously listed.  But taken in context, this idea of knowing God’s deep secrets, his secret wisdom that he has set aside for our benefit and hidden from the world keeps coming up again and again (7, 8, 10, and 11).  It is the obvious conclusion as the object of verse 12.

This is great news!  But how do we get it!?  Someone might retort, “I’m a believer but I don’t feel like I’ve received any secret wisdom”…keep reading:

¹³ 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 words to explain spiritual truths.^{[f] 14} But people who aren’t spiritual^[g] can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means. ¹⁵ Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others.

It really isn’t my intention to blog about praying in tongues this often.  I do have other things I want to blog about but it continues to amaze me how frequently texts which I’ve read in the past are now standing out to me in entirely new ways.  Previously I would have glossed over this paragraph but now I see it in a whole new light.  This paragraph is clearly teaching about the benefits of praying in tongues: Words given to us by the Spirit, words that sound foolish and can’t be understood by people who aren’t spiritual.

¹⁶ For,

   “Who can know the Lord’s thoughts?
      Who knows enough to teach him?”^[h]

   But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.

If we align ourselves with Christ, if we are diligent to spend time praying in tongues, secret wisdom will come.  That is God’s promise in 1 Cor 2.  I do not believe it is the actual words spoken that imparts intellectual wisdom.  But I do believe that the spoken words of the Spirit is a highly effective form of prayer from God that declare and decree blessings over you which includes wisdom and knowledge that comes not from this world or the sum of your experiences in this world, but from God!  I think this secret wisdom can take many different forms, and the devil acts quickly to try to make us question the validity or the source of this wisdom, knowledge, hunch, impression, etc…

Which brings us to one last question implicit in verse 7, why did God need to hide this wisdom?  Why isn’t it available to anyone?

The enemy is out there and has free reign on this world.  Anything known in this world is known by the enemy.  Anyone in the military or defense industry will tell that the first rule to Operations Security is to keep your mouth shut.  Everything is on a Need to Know basis.  Personal communications back to family members is often times one of the military’s biggest OPSEC problems.  For example, Joe Marine tells his family their unit is moving into village XYZ.  Joe’s family posts on Facebook asking for prayers for Joe as they move into village XYZ.  Someone from the enemy who’s only job in life is to monitor online posts by military families sees this and communicates it to his boss.  Boss thinks it’s a good idea to set up explosives on the path to village to XYZ to tell the United States we aren’t welcome in village XYZ.  Joe gets killed.  It was a simple transfer of information to appease Joe’s family so they could get prayer for him, but this kind of stuff is a real problem.

I believe this secret wisdom might be truth, light, revelation, etc. to help shield you from the attacks of the enemy in finance, temptation, addiction, stress, self-confidence, preoccupation, health, whatever, so that you can continue to be on the front line advancing the Kingdom of God.  It may also be words of knowledge, leads to divine appointments, spiritual discernment, visions, prophecies, healing, etc. that allow us to effectively build up the Body of Christ and reach out to a broken world that needs to see God’s love and power.

If God had provided the full extent of this secret wisdom at the beginning of creation, the Devil would have been there from the beginning putting up traps and crafting schemes to try and keep you from fulfilling your role in the Great Commission.  But by hiding these secret wisdoms from the world and making them available only to those who are Spiritually discerning, the Devil is unknowledgeable of the details of how God will restore his creation back to himself beyond what God has revealed in Revelations.  Pretty clever I think.