Third Sunday Meditation: What Eye Has Not Seen And Ear Has Not Heard

"For from of old no one has heard or perceived

by ear, nor has the eye seen a God besides You,

Who works and shows Himself active on behalf

of him who earnestly waits for Him."

Isaiah 64:4

"For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth.

And the former things shall not be remembered or

come into mind."

Isaiah 65:17

"For as the new heavens and the new earth which I make

shall remain before Me, says the Lord, so shall your offspring

and your name remain."

Isaiah 66:22

FIRST CORINTHIANS  CHAPTER TWO

A message as relevant for the Church today
as when it was first written in A.D. 55, during the
Apostle Paul's extended ministry in Ephesus.

Located on the Mediterranean Sea, the city of Corinth

enjoyed a trade monopoly that made it a wealthy trading center.

In Paul's day it was a Roman colony, attracting a cosmopolitan

population of Romans, Greeks, and Jews from various points of

the Mediterranean world.  This changing population created

moral conditions that were regarded as inferior even by

pagan standards. In a setting like this it is no wonder that

the Corinthian church was plagued by numerous problems.

Paul sent this letter in response to information he had

received about the conditions of the church there.

Through his appeal Paul brings to bear the implications

of the Gospel for everyday experiences of life in a pagan society.

--The Amplified Bible

"As for myself, brethren, when I came to you, I did not come

proclaiming to you the testimony and evidence or mystery and secret

of God concerning what He has done through Christ for the salvation

of men in lofty words of eloquence or human philosophy and wisdom;

For I resolved to know nothing, to be acquainted with nothing, to make

a display of the knowledge of nothing, and to be conscious of nothing

among you except Jesus Christ the Messiah and Him crucified.

And I was in a state of weakness and fear and great trembling

after I had come among you.

And my language and my message were not set forth in persuasive

words of wisdom, but they were in demonstration of the Holy Spirit 

and power, a proof by the Spirit and power of God, operating on me

and stirring in the minds of my hearers the most holy emotions

and thus persuading them.

So that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, human

philosophy, but in the power of God.

Yet when we are among the full grown Christians who are ripe

in understanding, we do impart higher wisdom, the knowledge of the

divine plan previously hidden; but it is indeed not a wisdom of this

present age or of this world nor of the leaders and rulers of this age,

who are being brought to nothing and are doomed to pass away.

But rather what we are setting forth is a wisdom of God once hidden

from the human understanding and now revealed to us by God, that

wisdom which God devised and decreed before the ages for our

glorification to lift us into the glory of His presence.

None of the rulers of this age or world perceived and recognized

and understood this, for if they had, they would never have

crucified the Lord of glory.

But, on the contrary, as the Scripture says, What eye has not seen

and ear has not heard and has not entered into the heart of man, all

that God has prepared, made and keeps ready, for those who love Him,

who hold Him in affectionate reverence, promptly obeying Him,

and gratefully recognizing the benefits He has bestowed.

Yet to us God has unveiled and revealed them by and through His

Spirit, for the Holy Spirit searches diligently, exploring and examining

everything, even sounding the profound and bottomless things of God,

the divine counsels and things hidden and beyond man's scrutiny.

For what person perceives, knows and understands, what passes

through a man's thoughts except the man's own spirit within him?

Just so no one discerns, comes to know and comprehend, the thoughts

of God except the Spirit of God.

Now we have not received the spirit that belongs to the world,

but the Holy Spirit Who is from God, given to us that we might realize

and comprehend and appreciate the gifts of divine favor and blessings

so freely and lavishly bestowed on us by God.

And we are setting these truths forth in words not taught by human

wisdom but taught by the Holy Spirit, combining and interpreting

spiritual truths with spiritual language to those who

possess the Holy Spirit.

But the natural, nonspiritual man does not accept or welcome or

admit into his heart the gifts and teachings and revelations of the

Spirit of God, for they are folly, meaningless nonsense to him;

and he is incapable of knowing them, of progressively recognizing,

understanding, and becoming better acquainted with them,

because they are spiritually discerned and estimated and appreciated.

But the spiritual man tries all things, he examines, investigates,

inquires into, questions, and discerns all things, yet is himself to be

put on trial and judged by no one, he can read the meaning of 

everything, but no one can properly discern or appraise or

even get an insight into him.

For who has known or understood the mind, the counsels and

purposes of the Lord so as to guide and instruct Him and give Him

knowledge?  But we have the mind of Christ, the Messiah, and do

hold the thoughts, feelings and purposes, of His heart.