2026 Epiphany Devotions
Friday, February 6
1 Corinthians 2:1-12
1 When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the testimony of God to you with superior speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. 4 My speech and my proclamation were made not with persuasive words of wisdom but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.
6 Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are being destroyed. 7 But we speak God’s wisdom, a hidden mystery, which God decreed before the ages for our glory 8 and which none of the rulers of this age understood, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the human heart conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—
10 God has revealed to us through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For what human knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.
“… so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God. …”
Years ago, in the first parish I served coming out of seminary, a member of the congregation asked me, “Pastor, did the serpent in the Garden of Eden have legs before the Fall?” Of course, I was stumped. Genesis tells us that God commanded the serpent to crawl on the ground and eat the dust implying, I guess, that at one time the serpent (tempter) had legs. As I thought about it later, I was hoping that church member’s faith was not dependent upon the serpent having legs.
Obviously, as Paul indicates, our faith should not rely on human wisdom and understanding. Rather, our faith must be focused on the power and glory of God.
Too often, however, in my pastoral journey, I have encountered people like the one mentioned above whose faith and trust in God depended on such unanswerable questions. Whether it related to the serpent in the Garden, the presence of unicorns on the Ark, or the exact number of years since God created the heavens and the earth, folks often connect their faith to that which is unknowable.
Paul reminds us that our faith should not rest on human knowledge or understanding, but on the power and glory of God who created us and all that exists, who sent Jesus to redeem us from our sins, and who gives us the Holy Spirit to sustain throughout our lives. In God alone is our trust.
Prayer: Almighty God, you who created, redeems, and sustains us, it is in You that we place our trust. Amen.