1 Corinthians 2:4

Plain English Version

I didn’t think up smart ideas or use smart words to get you to believe my message. No. I trusted God’s spirit to use his power to show everyone that my message is true.

Cross References

Acts 20:27

I told you all everything that God wants to do for you.

Acts 26:28

Then Agrippa said to Paul, “You have just been talking to me for a little while. You can’t get me to become a Christian so quick.”

Romans 15:13

You see, you can be sure that God can save you. So now I ask him to help you trust him properly, and to make you really happy, and feel good and quiet inside yourselves. Then the Holy Spirit will use his power to help you be really sure that God will do everything that he said he will do.

Romans 16:18

They don’t work for our leader, Jesus Christ, but they just work for themselves. They try to trick people. They talk really nicely to people and say good things about them. They do that to get whatever they want for themselves. They trick people that don’t think about it properly.

1 Corinthians 1:17

You see, Jesus Christ didn’t send me to baptise people. He sent me to tell the good news to people, that Jesus died for them. That message is powerful. God didn’t send me to say smart words to people. That sort of talk is useless. People might just think about my smart words, and not listen to God, and so they will not hear God’s powerful good news.

1 Corinthians 2:1

My Christian friends, remember when I first came to you and told you God’s message. I didn’t use smart words, like a man that thinks he knows everything.

1 Corinthians 2:13

Those are the things that we tell you about. We don’t use words that smart people taught us, but we use the words that God’s spirit teaches us. And we tell God’s message to people that have God’s spirit living inside them, and we help them understand it.

1 Corinthians 4:20

You see, if people are really in God’s family, they have God’s power, and they will live God’s way. They don’t just talk and keep on living the bad way.

Galatians 1:10

I’m not trying to make people happy with me, I’m trying to make God happy with me. I work for Jesus Christ now, so it doesn’t matter to me if some people aren’t happy when I talk straight like this.

Colossians 2:4

I’m telling you these things so that you will not listen to people that teach lies. They might talk in a way that sounds good, but they are liars.

1 Thessalonians 1:5

Remember the time when we told you the good news about Jesus. We told you the message with our words, but the Holy Spirit made us sure that we were telling the true story, and he gave us his power to show you that God was with us. And remember the sort of people we were at the time when we were with you there. We showed you the good way to live.

1 Peter 1:12

His spirit told them that the message wasn’t for themselves, but it was for you. That all happened a long time ago, and now God’s people have told you that good message about Jesus. The Holy Spirit from heaven gave them power to talk to you. This is all very wonderful. Even God’s angels in heaven don’t know all about the things that God does to save people, and they want to find out more.

2 Peter 1:16

Remember the story we told you about our leader, Jesus Christ. That was the true story. We didn’t make up smart stories to tell you. We told you that Jesus is powerful, and that he will come back here to this earth again. We saw for ourselves that Jesus is very great, and we told you everything we saw.

2 Peter 2:18

That mob teach with words that sound good, but they are useless. They say we are free now, so we can do anything we like. They say that it is all right to do bad things. That is what they teach, but it is wrong. You know, there are some people that used to go wrong, but then they turned around and started to go right. But now those liars are tricking them and getting them to go wrong again. Those liars tell them that they can do any bad things they like, to get their bodies to feel good. Those liars promise to free people, but they themselves are not free. They can’t stop themselves from doing bad and dirty things. It’s like this. If somebody can’t stop themselves from doing something, that thing is their boss and they have to work for it. So it’s like those bad things are their boss. They are not free.