Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Corinthians 2:13

"Which things also we speak, not in words which man`s wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth; combining spiritual things with spiritual [words]." — 1 Corinthians 2:13 (ASV)

Not in the words.—Not only the gospel truths themselves, but the very form and manner in which those truths are taught is the result of spiritual insight.

Comparing spiritual things with spiritual.—A better rendering is, explaining spiritual things in spiritual language; this is really only another, more pointed form of stating what he has just said.

The word translated here as “comparing” in our Authorized Version is used in the sense of expounding or teaching in the LXX (Genesis 40:8; Genesis 40:16; Daniel 5:12), especially of dreams, where the dream is, so to speak, “compared” with the interpretation. So here, the spiritual things are “compared” with the spiritual language in which they are stated.

Another meaning—explaining spiritual things to spiritual men—has been suggested, but the interpretation adopted would seem to be simpler and more natural. This second interpretation would make these words the introduction to the remark which follows about “the spiritual man,” but it involves a use of the word in which it is not found elsewhere in the New Testament.