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.
1 Corinthians 1
1
Greeting
1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, 2to the church of God sanctified in Christ Jesus that is in Corinth,#Some manuscripts have “to the church of God that is in Corinth, sanctified in Christ Jesus” called to be saints, together with all those who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, their Lord#*Here “Lord” must be supplied to indicate the referent; otherwise this could be understood as “their place and ours” and ours. 3Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thanksgiving for the Corinthian Believers
4I give thanks to my God always concerning you, because of the grace of God which was given to you in Christ Jesus, 5that#*Or “because”; the conjunction either (1) introduces a content clause (“that”) giving the content of Paul’s thanks, or (2) introduces a causal clause (“because”) giving the reason for Paul’s thanks in everything you were made rich in him, in all speech and all knowledge, 6just as the testimony about Christ has been confirmed in you, 7so that you do not lack in any spiritual gift as you#*Here “as” is supplied as a component of the participle (“eagerly await”) which is understood as temporal eagerly await the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8who will also confirm you until the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9God is faithful, by whom you were called to fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Divisions in the Church at Corinth
10Now I exhort you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all say the same thing and there not be divisions among you, and that you be made complete in the same mind and with the same purpose. 11For it has been made clear to me concerning you, my brothers, by Chloe’s people#Literally “those of Chloe”, that there are quarrels among you. 12But I say this, that each of you is saying, “I am with Paul,” and “I am with Apollos,” and “I am with Cephas,” and “I am with Christ.” 13Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he?#*The negative construction in Greek anticipates a negative answer here Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14I give thanks#Some manuscripts have “I give thanks to God” that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15lest anyone should say that you were baptized in my name. 16(Now I also baptized the household of Stephanas. Beyond that I do not know if I baptized anyone else.) 17For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to proclaim the gospel, not with clever speech#Literally “wisdom of word”, lest the cross of Christ be emptied.
Christ Crucified, the Power and Wisdom of God
18For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the intelligence of the intelligent I will confound.”#A quotation from Isa 29:14
20Where is the wise person? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not know God, God was pleased through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe. 22For indeed, Jews ask for sign miracles and Greeks seek wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a cause for stumbling, but to the Gentiles foolishness, 24but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom,#Literally “man” and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.#Literally “man”
Boast in the Lord
26For consider your calling, brothers, that not many were wise according to human standards,#Literally “according to flesh” not many were powerful, not many were well born. 27But the foolish things of the world God chose in order that he might put to shame the wise, and the weak things of the world God chose in order that he might put to shame the strong, 28and the insignificant of the world, and the despised, God chose, the things that are not, in order that he might abolish the things that are, 29so that all flesh may not boast before God. 30But from him you are in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom to us from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31so that, just as it is written, “The one who boasts, let him boast in the Lord.”#A quotation from Jer 9:24
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