1
“To: God’s Assembly in Corinth”
1 From: Paul, summoned and commissioned as an apostle of Messiah Jesus by the will of God, and Sosthenes, our brother.
2 To: God’s assembly in Corinth—those who have been set apart in union with Messiah Jesus, summoned to a holy life—together with all those who call on the name of our Lord Jesus the Messiah everywhere—both their Lord and ours.
3 To all of ᵖyou+ grace, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus the Messiah.
“Faithful Is the God by Whom You Were Summoned”
4 I give thanks to my God constantly for you because of the gift of God that was given to you in union with Messiah Jesus,
5 that you were enriched in union with him in indeed every respect—in every kind of utterance and every kind of knowledge—
6 just as the truth of what we solemnly proclaimed about the Messiah was established beyond doubt while we were with you.
7 As a result, you are not lacking in any gracious gift of the Spirit as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus the Messiah to be revealed.
8 He will also continue to establish you in faith to the finish, so that you may be free from accusation in the Day of our Lord Jesus the Messiah.
9 Faithful is the God by whom you were summoned into fellowship with his Son, Jesus the Messiah, our Lord.
“Is the Messiah Divided?”
10 Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name and authority of our Lord Jesus the Messiah: Come into agreement, all of you, and put an end to the divisions among you, and allow yourselves, moreover, to be restored to unity in the same humble attitude and in a common conviction.
11 I am saying this, my brothers and sisters, because of some troubling news I’ve received from some members of Chloe’s household, namely, that bitter arguments are breaking out among you.
12 Here’s what I mean: One person says, “As for me, I’m Paul’s disciple”; someone else, “I, however, follow Apollos”; another, “As for me, I am a disciple of Kefa, Peter”; still another, “I, though, belong to the Messiah.”
13 Is the Messiah divided? Was it Paul who was crucified for you+? No! Or was it Paul’s name into which you were baptized? No!
14 I thank God that I baptized not a single one of you, except for Crispus and Gaius,
15 so that absolutely no one can claim that it was into my name that you were baptized.
16 (Oh yes, I did also baptize the household of Stephanus; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.)
17 The Messiah sent me not for the purpose of baptizing, you see, but to proclaim the gospel—not with wise, fine-sounding talk, lest the cross of the Messiah be robbed of its power.
18 Indeed, the message about the cross, in the eyes of those heading toward utter ruin, is nothing but sheer foolishness and nonsense. In the eyes of those heading toward salvation, however, from our standpoint, it is nothing short of the very power of God.
19 For it is written,
“I will thwart the so-called wisdom of the wise,
and the so-called understanding of the learned I will frustrate.”+
20 So where does this leave the wise man? Where does it leave the expert in the Torah? How impressive, really, is the brilliant debater of this age? God has shown that the world’s so-called wisdom is actually foolishness, hasn’t he?
21 Because God, according to his own plan and wisdom, you see, made it impossible for the world to know God through its own so-called wisdom, it was through a “foolish” message that he gladly chose to save those who put their faith in it.+
22 For indeed Jews demand signs, and Gentiles look for wisdom.
23 We, however, proclaim the news of Messiah crucified—to Jews a stumbling block, a source of anger and offense, and to Gentiles, foolishness and nonsense,
24 but in the eyes of those whom God has summoned, both Jews and Gentiles, Messiah the power of God and the wisdom of God.
25 For the seeming foolishness of God is far wiser than the so-called wisdom of mere men, and the seeming weakness of God is stronger than mere human strength.
26 For example, think about your own humble circumstances when God summoned you, brothers and sisters. Very few of you were wise or powerful by the world’s definition; very few of you were born into important and influential families.
27 The truth is, it is the things the world sees as foolish that God chooses for himself, to humiliate the wise; it is the things the world considers weak that God chooses for himself, to humiliate the things that are strong;
28 it is the things the world despises and sees as unimportant that God chooses for himself, the things regarded as worthless, in order to reduce to nothing the things that are prized,
29 so that no human being of any kind can have any grounds on which to exalt themselves in the presence of God.
30 It is because of what God has done, rather, that you are united with Messiah Jesus, who turned out to be for our sake wisdom from God, that is, righteousness and separation to God as a special holy possession and paid release from slavery,
31 so that, as it is written:
“If someone speaks exaltingly of anything,
let it be solely in regard to this: What the LORD has done.”+