Greeting

1 From Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and from Sosthenes, our brother in the Christian faith.

² To God’s church that was made holy by Christ Jesus and called to be God’s holy people in the city of Corinth and to people everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

³ Good will ^[a] and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ are yours!

⁴ I always thank God for you because Christ Jesus has shown you God’s good will. ⁵ Through Christ Jesus you have become rich in every way—in speech and knowledge of every kind. ⁶ Our message about Christ has been verified among you. ⁷ Therefore, you don’t lack any gift as you wait eagerly for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. ⁸ He will continue to give you strength until the end so that no one can accuse you of anything on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ God faithfully keeps his promises. He called you to be partners with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

God’s Wisdom Is Better Than the World’s Wisdom

¹⁰ Brothers and sisters, I encourage all of you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to agree with each other and not to split into opposing groups. I want you to be united in your understanding and opinions. ¹¹ Brothers and sisters, some people from Chloe’s family have made it clear to me that you are quarreling among yourselves. ¹² This is what I mean: Each of you is saying, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” ^[b] or “I follow Christ.” ¹³ Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in Paul’s name? ¹⁴ I thank God that ^[c] I didn’t baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius ¹⁵ so that no one can say you were baptized in my name. ¹⁶ I also baptized Stephanas and his family. Beyond that, I’m not sure whether I baptized anyone else. ¹⁷ Christ didn’t send me to baptize. Instead, he sent me to spread the Good News. I didn’t use intellectual arguments. That would have made the cross of Christ lose its meaning.

¹⁸ The message about the cross is nonsense to those who are being destroyed, but it is God’s power to us who are being saved. ¹⁹ Scripture says,

²⁰ Where is the wise person? Where is the scholar? Where is the persuasive speaker of our time? Hasn’t God turned the wisdom of the world into nonsense? ²¹ The world with its wisdom was unable to recognize God in terms of his own wisdom. So God decided to use the nonsense of the Good News we speak to save those who believe. ²² Jews ask for miraculous signs, and Greeks look for wisdom, ²³ but our message is that Christ was crucified. This offends Jewish people and makes no sense to people who are not Jewish. ²⁴ But to those Jews and Greeks who are called, he is Christ, God’s power and God’s wisdom. ²⁵ God’s nonsense is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

²⁶ Brothers and sisters, consider what you were when God called you to be Christians. Not many of you were wise from a human point of view. You were not in powerful positions or in the upper social classes. ²⁷ But God chose what the world considers nonsense to put wise people to shame. God chose what the world considers weak to put what is strong to shame. ²⁸ God chose what the world considers ordinary and what it despises—what it considers to be nothing—in order to destroy what it considers to be something. ²⁹ As a result, no one can brag in God’s presence. ³⁰ You are partners with Christ Jesus because of God. Jesus has become our wisdom sent from God, our approval, our holiness, and our ransom from sin. ³¹ As Scripture says, “Whoever brags must brag about what the Lord has done.”

2 Brothers and sisters, when I came to you, I didn’t speak about God’s mystery ^[d] as if it were some kind of brilliant message or wisdom. ² While I was with you, I decided to deal with only one subject—Jesus Christ, who was crucified. ³ When I came to you, I was weak. I was afraid and very nervous. ⁴ I didn’t speak my message with persuasive intellectual arguments. I spoke my message with a show of spiritual power ⁵ so that your faith would not be based on human wisdom but on God’s power.

⁶ However, we do use wisdom to speak to those who are mature. It is a wisdom that doesn’t belong to this world or to the rulers of this world who are in power today and gone tomorrow. ⁷ We speak about the mystery of God’s wisdom. It is a wisdom that has been hidden, which God had planned for our glory before the world began. ⁸ Not one of the rulers of this world has known it. If they had, they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory. ⁹ But as Scripture says:

¹⁰ God has revealed those things to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches everything, especially the deep things of God. ¹¹ After all, who knows everything about a person except that person’s own spirit? In the same way, no one has known everything about God except God’s Spirit. ¹² Now, we didn’t receive the spirit that belongs to the world. Instead, we received the Spirit who comes from God so that we could know the things which God has freely given us. ¹³ We don’t speak about these things using teachings that are based on intellectual arguments like people do. Instead, we use the Spirit’s teachings. We explain spiritual things to those who have the Spirit.^[e]

¹⁴ A person who isn’t spiritual doesn’t accept the teachings of God’s Spirit. He thinks they’re nonsense. He can’t understand them because a person must be spiritual to evaluate them. ¹⁵ Spiritual people evaluate everything but are subject to no one’s evaluation.

However, we have the mind of Christ.

You Belong to Christ

3 Brothers and sisters, I couldn’t talk to you as spiritual people but as people still influenced by your corrupt nature. You were infants in your faith in Christ. ² I gave you milk to drink. I didn’t give you solid food because you weren’t ready for it. Even now you aren’t ready for it ³ because you’re still influenced by your corrupt nature.

When you are jealous and quarrel among yourselves, aren’t you influenced by your corrupt nature and living by human standards? ⁴ When some of you say, “I follow Paul” and others say, “I follow Apollos,” aren’t you acting like ⌞sinful⌟ humans? ⁵ Who is Apollos? Who is Paul? They are servants who helped you come to faith. Each did what the Lord gave him to do. ⁶ I planted, and Apollos watered, but God made it grow. ⁷ So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is important because ⌞only⌟ God makes it grow. ⁸ The one who plants and the one who waters have the same goal, and each will receive a reward for his own work. ⁹ We are God’s coworkers. You are God’s field.

You are God’s building. ¹⁰ As a skilled and experienced builder, I used the gift ^[f] that God gave me to lay the foundation ⌞for that building⌟. However, someone else is building on it. Each person must be careful how he builds on it. ¹¹ After all, no one can lay any other foundation than the one that is already laid, and that foundation is Jesus Christ. ¹² People may build on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw. ¹³ The day will make what each one does clearly visible because fire will reveal it. That fire will determine what kind of work each person has done. ¹⁴ If what a person has built survives, he will receive a reward. ¹⁵ If his work is burned up, he will suffer ⌞the loss⌟. However, he will be saved, though it will be like going through a fire.

¹⁶ Don’t you know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? ¹⁷ If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him because God’s temple is holy. You are that holy temple!

¹⁸ Don’t deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise in the ways of this world, you should give up that wisdom in order to become really wise. ¹⁹ The wisdom of this world is nonsense in God’s sight. That’s why Scripture says, “God catches the wise in their cleverness.” ²⁰ Again Scripture says, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are pointless.”

²¹ So don’t brag about people. Everything belongs to you. ²² Whether it is Paul, Apollos, Cephas, the world, life or death, present or future things, everything belongs to you. ²³ You belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

The Work of the Apostles

4 People should think of us as servants of Christ and managers who are entrusted with God’s mysteries. ² Managers are required to be trustworthy.

³ It means very little to me that you or any human court should cross-examine me. I don’t even ask myself questions. ⁴ I have a clear conscience, but that doesn’t mean I have God’s approval. It is the Lord who cross-examines me. ⁵ Therefore, don’t judge anything before the appointed time. Wait until the Lord comes. He will also bring to light what is hidden in the dark and reveal people’s motives. Then each person will receive praise from God.

⁶ Brothers and sisters, I have applied this to Apollos and myself for your sake. You should learn from us not to go beyond what is written in Scripture. Then you won’t arrogantly place one of us in opposition to the other.

⁷ Who says that you are any better than other people? What do you have that wasn’t given to you? If you were given what you have, why are you bragging as if it weren’t a gift?

⁸ You already have what you want! You’ve already become rich! You’ve become kings without us! I wish you really were kings so that we could be kings with you.

⁹ As I see it, God has placed us apostles last in line, like people condemned to die. We have become a spectacle for people and angels to look at. ¹⁰ We have given up our wisdom for Christ, but you have insight because of Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are honored, but we are dishonored. ¹¹ To this moment, we are hungry, thirsty, poorly dressed, roughly treated, and homeless. ¹² We wear ourselves out doing physical labor. When people verbally abuse us, we bless them. When people persecute us, we endure it. ¹³ When our reputations are attacked, we remain courteous. Right now we have become garbage in the eyes of the world and trash in the sight of all people.

¹⁴ I’m not writing this to make you feel ashamed but to instruct you as my dear children. ¹⁵ You may have countless Christian guardians, but you don’t have many ⌞spiritual⌟ fathers. I became your father in the Christian life by telling you the Good News about Christ Jesus. ¹⁶ So I encourage you to imitate me. ¹⁷ That’s why I’ve sent Timothy to you to help you remember my Christian way of life as I teach it everywhere in every church. Timothy is my dear child, and he faithfully does the Lord’s work.

¹⁸ Some of you have become arrogant because you think I won’t pay you a visit. ¹⁹ If it’s the Lord’s will, I’ll visit you soon. Then I’ll know what these arrogant people are saying and what power they have. ²⁰ God’s kingdom is not just talk, it is power.

²¹ When I come to visit you, would you prefer that I punish you or show you love and a gentle spirit?