How To Acquire Wisdom: by Andrew Murray

 

1 Corinthians 2:4-7
 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power,
 so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.
 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.
 No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.
1 Corinthians 2:10
 but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.
1 Corinthians 2:12-15
 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.
 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.
 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
 The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment:

In this passage Paul contrasted the spirit of the world and the Spirit of God. It was in seeking knowledge that man fell. It was in the pride of knowledge that heathenism had its origin: “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:22).

Man’s wisdom is incapable of understanding God or His wisdom. Because his heart is alienated from God his mind is darkened. Even when in Christ the light of God in its divine love shone upon men, they knew it not and saw no beauty in it.

Divine revelation, as Paul discussed it in this chapter, means three things. God must make known in His Word what He thinks and does. Every preacher who is to communicate the message must continually be taught by the Spirit how to speak it. And every hearer needs the inward illumination. As we have the mind and attitudes of Christ, we can discern the truth as it is in Christ Jesus.

Reject the spirit of the world still in you with its wisdom and self-confidence. Come, in poverty of spirit, to be led by the Spirit. “Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2). The Spirit will teach a transformed, renewed life that wants only to know God’s perfect will. Deny your own fleshly wisdom. Wait for the wisdom in the inward parts that God has promised (Psalm 51:6). You will increasingly be able to testify of the things that have not entered into the hearts of men and will understand that “God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit.”