1 Corinthians 1
1
1Paul called to be an Apostle of Iesus Christ, through the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, 2Vnto the Church of God, which is at Corinthus, to them that are sanctified in Christ Iesus, Saintes by calling, with all that call on the Name of our Lord Iesus Christ in euery place, both their Lord, and ours: 3Grace be with you, and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Iesus Christ. 4I thanke my God alwayes on your behalfe for the grace of God, which is giuen you in Iesus Christ, 5That in all things ye are made rich in him, in all kinde of speach, and in all knowledge: 6As the testimonie of Iesus Christ hath bene confirmed in you: 7So that ye are not destitute of any gift: wayting for the appearing of our Lord Iesus Christ. 8Who shall also confirme you vnto the ende, that ye may be blamelesse, in the day of our Lord Iesus Christ. 9God is faithfull, by whom ye are called vnto the fellowship of his Sonne Iesus Christ our Lord. 10Nowe I beseeche you, brethren, by the Name of our Lord Iesus Christ, that ye all speake one thing, and that there be no dissensions among you: but be ye knit together in one mind, and in one iudgement. 11For it hath bene declared vnto me, my brethren, of you by them that are of the house of Cloe, that there are contentions among you. 12Nowe this I say, that euery one of you saith, I am Pauls, and I am Apollos, and I am Cephas, and I am Christs. 13Is Christ deuided? was Paul crucified for you? either were ye baptized into the name of Paul? 14I thanke God, that I baptized none of you, but Crispus, and Gaius, 15Lest any should say, that I had baptized into mine owne name. 16I baptized also the houshold of Stephanas: furthermore knowe I not, whether I baptized any other. 17For CHRIST sent me not to baptize, but to preache the Gospel, not with wisdome of wordes, lest the crosse of Christ should be made of none effect. 18For that preaching of the crosse is to them that perish, foolishnesse: but vnto vs, which are saued, it is the power of God. 19For it is written, I will destroy the wisedome of the wise, and will cast away the vnderstanding of the prudent. 20Where is the wise? where is the Scribe? where is the disputer of this worlde? hath not God made the wisedome of this worlde foolishnesse? 21For seeing the worlde by wisedome knewe not God in the wisedome of GOD, it pleased God by the foolishnesse of preaching to saue them that beleeue: 22Seeing also that the Iewes require a signe, and the Grecians seeke after wisdome. 23But wee preach Christ crucified: vnto the Iewes, euen a stumbling blocke, and vnto the Grecians, foolishnesse: 24But vnto them which are called, both of the Iewes and Grecians, we preach Christ, the power of God, and the wisedome of God. 25For the foolishnesse of God is wiser then men, and the weakenesse of God is stronger then men. 26For brethren, you see your calling, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. 27But God hath chosen the foolish thinges of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weake thinges of the worlde, to confound the mightie things, 28And vile things of the worlde and thinges which are despised, hath God chosen, and thinges which are not, to bring to nought thinges that are, 29That no flesh shoulde reioyce in his presence. 30But ye are of him in Christ Iesus, who of God is made vnto vs wisedome and righteousnesse, and sanctification, and redemption, 31That, according as it is written, Hee that reioyceth, let him reioyce in the Lord.
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1 Corinthians 1
1
1-2I, Paul, have been called and sent by Jesus, the Messiah, according to God’s plan, along with my friend Sosthenes. I send this letter to you in God’s church at Corinth, believers cleaned up by Jesus and set apart for a God-filled life. I include in my greeting all who call out to Jesus, wherever they live. He’s their Master as well as ours!
3May all the gifts and benefits that come from God our Father, and the Master, Jesus Christ, be yours.
4-6Every time I think of you—and I think of you often!—I thank God for your lives of free and open access to God, given by Jesus. There’s no end to what has happened in you—it’s beyond speech, beyond knowledge. The evidence of Christ has been clearly verified in your lives.
7-9Just think—you don’t need a thing, you’ve got it all! All God’s gifts are right in front of you as you wait expectantly for our Master Jesus to arrive on the scene for the Finale. And not only that, but God himself is right alongside to keep you steady and on track until things are all wrapped up by Jesus. God, who got you started in this spiritual adventure, shares with us the life of his Son and our Master Jesus. He will never give up on you. Never forget that.
The Cross: The Irony of God’s Wisdom
10I have a serious concern to bring up with you, my friends, using the authority of Jesus, our Master. I’ll put it as urgently as I can: You must get along with each other. You must learn to be considerate of one another, cultivating a life in common.
11-12I bring this up because some from Chloe’s family brought a most disturbing report to my attention—that you’re fighting among yourselves! I’ll tell you exactly what I was told: You’re all picking sides, going around saying, “I’m on Paul’s side,” or “I’m for Apollos,” or “Peter is my man,” or “I’m in the Messiah group.”
13-16I ask you, “Has the Messiah been chopped up in little pieces so we can each have a relic all our own? Was Paul crucified for you? Was a single one of you baptized in Paul’s name?” I was not involved with any of your baptisms—except for Crispus and Gaius—and on getting this report, I’m sure glad I wasn’t. At least no one can go around saying he was baptized in my name. (Come to think of it, I also baptized Stephanas’s family, but as far as I can recall, that’s it.)
17God didn’t send me out to collect a following for myself, but to preach the Message of what he has done, collecting a following for him. And he didn’t send me to do it with a lot of fancy rhetoric of my own, lest the powerful action at the center—Christ on the Cross—be trivialized into mere words.
18-21The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. It’s written,
I’ll turn conventional wisdom on its head,
I’ll expose so-called experts as shams.
So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn’t God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense? Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered stupid—preaching, of all things!—to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.
22-25While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle—and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But to us who are personally called by God himself—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God’s ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one. Human wisdom is so cheap, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can’t begin to compete with God’s “weakness.”
26-31Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.”
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.