Tuesday of the 22nd Week of Ordinary Time
But to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For who among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God except God's Spirit. But we received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that were freely given to us by God. We also speak these things, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things. Now the natural man doesn't receive the things of God's Spirit, for they are foolishness to him; and he can't know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual discerns all things, and he himself is to be judged by no one. "For who has known the mind of the Lord that he should instruct him?" But we have Christ's mind.
The Lord is gracious, merciful, Slow to anger, and of great loving kindness. The Lord is good to all. His tender mercies are over all his works.
All your works will give thanks to you, Lord. Your saints will extol you. They will speak of the glory of your kingdom, And talk about your power,
To make known to the sons of men his mighty acts, The glory of the majesty of his kingdom. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. Your dominion endures throughout all generations. The Lord is faithful in all his words, And loving in all his deeds.
Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. Your dominion endures throughout all generations. The Lord is faithful in all his words, And loving in all his deeds. The Lord upholds all who fall, And raises up all those who are bowed down.
He came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee. He was teaching them on the Sabbath day, And they were astonished at his teaching, for his word was with authority. In the synagogue there was a man who had a spirit of an unclean demon; and he cried out with a loud voice, Saying, "Ah! what have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: the Holy One of God!"
Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent and come out of him!" When the demon had thrown him down in the middle of them, he came out of him, having done him no harm.
Amazement came on all and they spoke together, one with another, saying, "What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!" News about him went out into every place of the surrounding region.
There's something almost jarring about the opening of Paul's letter today. He's not talking about rules or rituals — he's talking about *knowing*. About how we come to understand anything real at all.
Paul draws a comparison that lands close to home: just as only you truly know your own inner life — your fears, your longings, the things you've never said out loud — so only the Spirit of God knows the depths of God. And here's the astonishing claim: that Spirit has been given to us. Not earned, not achieved. Freely given.
This matters enormously for how we move through an ordinary Tuesday. The "natural person," as Paul calls them, operates on the logic of the world — what's measurable, what's useful, what makes immediate sense. And we all live there much of the time. We calculate, we strategize, we manage. None of that is wrong. But Paul is pointing to something underneath all of that — a deeper way of perceiving, available to us precisely because we've received the Spirit.
Notice how the Gospel illuminates this from a different angle. Jesus walks into the synagogue and speaks with authority — not the authority of credentials or position, but something the crowd recognizes as *different*. Even the unclean spirit names it before the people do: "the Holy One of God." What becomes clear is that authority rooted in truth has a quality that can't be faked or manufactured. People feel it.
The invitation for us today is to slow down enough to let the Spirit do what Paul says the Spirit does — search the deep things. Not just skim the surface of our days, but ask what God might actually be revealing in the ordinary moments: a difficult conversation, a quiet lunch break, an unexpected kindness.
What would it look like to trust the Spirit's knowledge more than your own calculations today? Where in your life are you relying on "the spirit of the world" rather than the Spirit given to you? And what might it mean, practically, to carry even a small piece of "Christ's mind" into your afternoon?