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Mind of Man

For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. (1 Corinthians 2:11 NIV)

One of the things I see often is people judging with absolute certainty the thoughts and motives of another person. To them, it is self-evident. The text quoted is a rhetorical question. Paul is not asking for a show of hands on who knows another person’s thoughts. He is saying that man cannot know the thoughts of another man. We could know if the man told us and we could know if we had the man’s spirit. We could also know if God revealed the man’s thoughts to us. Until then, we must not judge the thoughts of another person. We guess! We guess wrongly and then act on our guess as if we were right.

(An excerpt from On Being a Christian by Jim Wilson)

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