Weekly Devotion, 7/18/2022

Passage for this week: 1 Corinthians 2:12-16
Resource: Pray The Word Podcast by David Platt

How to use this resource: The questions below should be read after you and your family have spent time listening to the resource, and after you have had time to read through the passage carefully and slowly. Following your family time discussion (using the questions below, or your own questions regarding this text), close in prayer and ask your kids how you can be praying for them and let them know how they can be praying for you as parents.

Family Devotional Question For This Week: 

1.    What stands out to you the most from reading this passage? What did you learn that is new to you from this passage? What did you learn that caused you to remember something you’ve known, or what has been reinforced from reading this passage?

2. How does this passage and David’s explanation help us understand and see the reality that Jesus died for us so that he might live in us? How is the Holy Spirit the revelation or explanation of that happening? 
(Potential answers: Starting from verse 13 on, Paul is simply explaining the truth that spiritual people – people who have the Holy Spirit dwelling within them after accepting Jesus Christ as their savior – are the only ones who are able to understand and receive spiritual truths that are God-given through His Word. For the natural person (the unbelieving person), they are unable to make spiritual judgments or understand the truths about God. The spiritual person has a higher evaluation on things because the Spirit of God and the Word of God guides them. So, the person who has the Spirit of God is able to evaluate all things spiritual and of God because the Spirit of God guides that person into the truth of God.

3. What does it mean practically to have the mind of Christ as Paul explains in verse 16? 
(Potential answers: As explained above, and as David explained, The Spirit of God knows the depths of God, and the Holy Spirit living inside each believer freely gives us everything we need to know in this state about God through understanding His Word. David explained further that more and more every day we want to think like Jesus, and we can think like Jesus, like his word, as we meditate on his word (and included the connection to Galatians 2:20 for free). There is also an inclusion of Isaiah 40:13 which Paul quotes verbatim in this verse. To conclude, the ending of this chapter makes more sense when we read on into chapter 3 of 1 Corinthians as Paul has been building up to why he cannot explain the spiritual things of God to these believers quite yet.

Prayer Prompts For This Week: 

 – Pray that we would know and have the mind of Christ and would meditate on the Word of the Lord as David mentioned from Psalm 1:1.
 – Pray that we would be more in tune with the Spirit of God that lives within each believer in Christ and that we would not neglect His Word.
 – Continue to pray for one another and write down or remember the requests of each person. Either have one person pray over each request, or delegate those prayer requests so that each person prays for something or someone specific.