There are several important practical lessons that the church must learn from this passage. Two of them are particularly important for the contemporary Western church. What it means to be “spiritual” is profoundly tied to the cross, and to nothing else. More precisely, to be spiritual, in this passage, is to enjoy the gift of the Holy Spirit—and this means understanding and appropriating the message of the cross, “God’s secret wisdom.” For Paul, being spiritual does not lead
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