---
title: 1 Corinthians 2:2
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/1-corinthians-2-2/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/1-corinthians-2-2.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: 1 Corinthians 2:2
testament: NT
section: Letters
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# 1 Corinthians 2:2

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

## JW Usage

The Watchtower agrees in principle that Jesus' death and resurrection are central to the gospel. In practice, "Jesus Christ and him crucified" is folded into a larger curriculum that includes Kingdom preaching, the organisation, the 144,000, Armageddon survival, and loyalty to the faithful and discreet slave. The narrowness of Paul's own self-restriction in 2:2 — resolving to know ONLY Christ crucified in his initial preaching — is not preserved in the Watchtower's progressive Bible-study programme.

## Protestant Usage

2:2 is Paul's self-editing principle for his gospel preaching: "I resolved to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified." Not the organisation, not eschatology, not ecclesiology — Jesus Christ crucified. Pair with 1 Corinthians 1:18 ("preaching about the stake is God's power") and 1 Corinthians 2:14 (the natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit). At the door: "When Paul came to Corinth — a city of philosophers, temples, and every kind of religion — he narrowed to one thing: Christ and him crucified. That is what he thought the spiritually dead needed to hear. If the Watchtower's first-study curriculum includes Armageddon, 1914, and the 144,000 before it includes the crucified Christ, Paul's resolution was the opposite."

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The Natural Man Cannot Discern Spiritual Things](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/1cor2-14-natural-man.md) — 1 Corinthians 2:14 — Why Research Alone Won't Save You [Salvation]