Spiritual Discernment, a Reflection on 1 Corinthians 2:13-16

Paul continues the contrast between what can be taught by human wisdom and what can be taught by the Spirit. What the Spirit teaches is intelligible to the spiritual, but not to those who are unspiritual.

Here's how Eugene Peterson expresses it in The Message:

[To the unspiritual,] they seem like so much silliness. Spirit can be known only by spirit--God's Spirit and our spirits in open communion.

I'm thinking of all the things we tend to be afraid of--people who don't look like us, or behave in ways that we just wouldn't, or somebody else getting to make a decision about something that affect us, and much, much more. We do spend a lot of our effort on focusing on our fears. I'm not sure that it's human wisdom that's led us astray so much as no wisdom at all. But, I'm sure that being open to what the Spirit of God had to say about such changes in our lives would help us to face them without so much fear and angst.

Also, let us not read Paul to be saying that human wisdom has no benefit at all. Rather. we are always to use and to interpret what we've learned in a way that serves God's purpose.