The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians

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- Chapter 1 -

(Acts 18:1–11; 2 Corinthians 1:1–2)

I, Paul, am writing this letter. Sosthenes, our fellow believer, is with me as I write this letter to you. God appointed me to be an apostle of Messiah Jesus, and God chose me to serve him.

This letter is to the church of God in Corinth, to those whom Messiah Jesus has set apart for God, with everyone else, everywhere, who calls on God to save them in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.

May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ love you and give you peace.

Thanksgiving

(Philippians 1:3–11; Colossians 1:3–14)

I thank God every day for you because of the many costly gifts that Messiah Jesus has given to you because he loves you.

Messiah has given you so many things. He helped you in all your speaking and in all your knowledge.

You yourselves are the proof that these statements about Messiah are true.

That is the reason you do not lack any gift from the Spirit of God while you wait for the day when God will make the Lord Jesus Christ known and will show him to everyone.

God will also make you strong so you can serve him to the very end, so you will bring no shame upon yourselves on the day that our Lord Jesus Christ returns to earth.

God is keeping his promise to do that. God called you, so you can know and love his Son, Jesus Christ, who is our Lord.

Unity in the Church

(Psalm 133:1–3; Ephesians 4:1–16)

My brothers and sisters, I beg you by the authority of Jesus, that you come to an agreement and that you settle your disagreements, and that you no longer divide yourselves into groups. Learn to see things from the same point of view and to work together to accomplish the same task.

Those in Chloe’s house have reported to me that there are divisions and disagreements among some of you.

This is the problem. Each of you claims to have loyalty to one leader or another. One says, “I am loyal to Paul.” Another says, “I am loyal to Apollos.” Someone else says, “I am loyal to Peter.” And the last one says, “But I am loyal to Messiah.”

But Messiah does not divide his loyalty. Paul was not crucified for you. The person who baptized you did not baptize you in the name of Paul.

I thank God that I baptized only a few people there; among them I baptized Crispus and Gaius.

It would not be true that I baptized them in my name.

Now I remember that I also baptized the household of Stephanas, but other than those people, I do not remember baptizing anyone else in Corinth.

The most important work Messiah sent me to do was to tell everyone the good news about him, not to baptize people. I did not proclaim the good news using human wisdom or clever words so instead I could use the power of the work of Messiah dying on the cross.

The Message of the Cross

For those who are dead to the things of God cannot understand him. Messiah died for them on the cross, but this message is pointless to them. However, for those of us whom God has rescued and brought to life, this message allows God to powerfully work in us.

A prophet wrote in the scriptures: “The wisdom of those who think they are wise, I will destroy, and I will make the brilliant plans of the intelligent to be utter failures.”

Where are the wise people of this world? They did not understand anything about God. Neither did the scholars, nor those skilled in debate. For God has shown that everything they call wisdom is really foolishness.

In the wisdom of God, unbelievers did not come to know God by their own wisdom. So God was pleased to use a message that they thought was foolish. That is the message we proclaimed and it had power to save all who believe it.

The Jews wanted public displays of miraculous power before they would follow anyone. The Greeks are looking for wisdom through new and fresh ways of thinking about spiritual ideas.

But we proclaim a message about Messiah, who died on a cross. For the Jews this message about the cross of Messiah is something they cannot receive because death on a cross brings a curse with it. To the Greeks it is too foolish to deserve their attention.

But for us, we whom God called so we can know him, that message shows that God acted powerfully and wisely by sending Messiah to die for us. The good news is not tied to any race or philosophy; in Messiah there is no distinction between Jews and all the other nations and races on earth.

For the things of God that appear foolish are really wiser that the most brilliant ideas human beings can imagine. And the things of God that appear weakest are stronger than the strongest and greatest human being who ever lived.

Wisdom from God

Brothers and sisters, look at the kind of person you were when God called you. See how unimportant you were. You were not the wisest of people. You were not important enough for people to obey you. You had no important ancestors.

Instead, God chose the things that made no sense to unbelievers so that they would stop praising themselves. God chose to use things that were weak to put to shame the things they believed were so strong.

God chose what the unbelievers think is of no importance in order to show that the things they consider to be important have no value.

God did this so that no human being could have any reason to praise himself and he should offer God all praise instead.

Because of what God has done, you are now joined to Messiah Jesus, who has made clear to us how wise God is. He has put us right with God, he has set us apart for God, and he has rescued us and brought us to safety.

So, as the scriptures say: “The one who praises himself should praise himself only in what the Lord has done for him.”

(Acts 18:1–11; 2 Corinthians 1:1–2)

Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ

(a)

through the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,

to the assembly of God which is at Corinth—those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, both theirs and ours:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thanksgiving

(Philippians 1:3–11; Colossians 1:3–14)

I always thank my God concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus,

that in everything you were enriched in him, in all speech and all knowledge—

even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you—

so that you come behind in no gift, waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ,

who will also confirm you until the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Unity in the Church

(Psalm 133:1–3; Ephesians 4:1–16)

Now I beg you, brothers,(b) through the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfected together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

For it has been reported to me concerning you, my brothers, by those who are from Chloe’s household, that there are contentions among you.

Now I mean this, that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” “I follow Apollos,” “I follow Cephas,” and, “I follow Christ.”

Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized into the name of Paul?

I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius,

so that no one should say that I had baptized you into my own name.

(I also baptized the household of Stephanas; besides them, I don’t know whether I baptized any other.)

For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Good News—not in wisdom of words, so that the cross of Christ wouldn’t be made void.

The Message of the Cross

For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are dying, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. I will bring the discernment of the discerning to nothing.”(c)

Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Hasn’t God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

For seeing that in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom didn’t know God, it was God’s good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe.

For Jews ask for signs, Greeks seek after wisdom,

but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks,

but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God;

because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

Wisdom from God

For you see your calling, brothers, that not many are wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, and not many noble;

but God chose the foolish things of the world that he might put to shame those who are wise. God chose the weak things of the world that he might put to shame the things that are strong.

God chose the lowly things of the world, and the things that are despised, and the things that don’t exist, that he might bring to nothing the things that exist,

that no flesh should boast before God.

Because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who was made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption,

that, as it is written, “He who boasts, let him boast in the Lord.”(d)

Footnotes

(a)1:1 “Christ” means “Anointed One”.

(b)1:10 The word for “brothers” here and where context allows may also be correctly translated “brothers and sisters” or “siblings.”

(d)1:31 ℘ Jeremiah 9:24