Some of the problems of this verse have been covered in the comments on verse 13. Once more, Paul turns from positive to negative statements, using a “but,” which both Revised Standard Version and Good News Bible omit in translation, feeling that the contrast can be understood in English without this word.
Translations often rightly put “God’s Spirit” (Good News Bible) where the text has only “Spirit.” In the same way it is possible that scribes added the word “God’s” to make the meaning clear.
There is nothing in the Greek that corresponds to the gifts, but the thought is so close to that of verse 12 that Revised Standard Version and Good News Bible are right to add a reference to God’s gifts in the present verse only.
The clause the gifts of the Spirit of God may also be rendered as “that God’s Spirit gives.”
Folly is the word used in 1.18, 21, and 23. They are folly to him may be rephrased as “he considers them to be nonsense.”
Revised Standard Version keeps the two clauses, for they … understand them, in the same order as the Greek, but Good News Bible changes the order to show more clearly the relation between them. The second clause is literally “and he cannot understand.”
Them, in both Revised Standard Version and Good News Bible, refers to the gifts of the Spirit. Understand is the word that was translated “know” in verse 11. In this verse it refers to particular events, implying “Even when they see what happens when God gives the gifts of his Spirit to people, they do not realize what is happening.” It is also possible, in the light of the words “all things” in verse 15, that understand refers to something more general. In that case, “he does not understand anything” is a possible translation.
As in verse 11, man refers to people in general, not to any male individual. Good News Bible second edition omits “to him” in order to avoid the masculine pronoun.
The Greek anakrinō, whichGood News Bible translates as “judged” and Revised Standard Version discerned (see comments on verse 13), refers to the process of examination and investigation that leads up to a judgment, rather than just to a verdict in the law court or to God’s final judgment. In Acts 17.11 the meaning is that the Jews in Beroea were examining the Scriptures carefully, in order to see whether what the Christians were saying was true. In this verse the meaning of anakrinō is that it is only with the help of God’s Spirit that the Spirit’s own gifts can be examined and understood. In certain languages that do not naturally use a passive form of the verb, it may be helpful to render this final clause as “because a person can judge their value only if he has the Spirit living in him.”
Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, 2nd edition. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1985/1994. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .