1 This letter is from Paul. I have been chosen by God to be a missionary of Jesus Christ. Sosthenes, a Christian brother, writes also. ² I write to God’s church in the city of Corinth. I write to those who belong to Christ Jesus and to those who are set apart by Him and made holy. I write to all the Christians everywhere who call on the name of Jesus Christ. He is our Lord and their Lord also. ³ May you have loving-favor and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul Gives Thanks for Their Faith

⁴ I am thankful to God all the time for you. I am thankful for the loving-favor God has given to you because you belong to Christ Jesus. ⁵ He has made your lives rich in every way. Now you have power to speak for Him. He gave you good understanding. ⁶ This shows that what I told you about Christ and what He could do for you has been done in your lives. ⁷ You have the gifts of the Holy Spirit that you need while you wait for the Lord Jesus Christ to come again. ⁸ Christ will keep you strong until He comes again. No blame will be held against you. ⁹ God is faithful. He chose you to be joined together with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Church in Corinth Is Divided

¹⁰ Christian brothers, I ask you with all my heart in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to agree among yourselves. Do not be divided into little groups. Think and act as if you all had the same mind. ¹¹ My Christian brothers, I have heard from some of Chloe’s family that you are arguing among yourselves. ¹² I hear that some of you are saying, “I am a follower of Paul,” and “I am a follower of Apollos,” and “I am a follower of Peter,” and “I am a follower of Christ.” ¹³ Has Christ been divided? Was Paul put on a cross to die for your sins? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? ¹⁴ I am thankful to God that I baptized Crispus and Gaius only. ¹⁵ No one can say that you were baptized in the name of Paul. ¹⁶ I remember I did baptize the family of Stephanas, but I do not remember baptizing any others. ¹⁷ Christ did not send me to baptize. He sent me to preach the Good News. I did not use big sounding words when I preached. If I had, the power of the cross of Christ would be taken away.

Christ Is the Power and Wisdom of God

¹⁸ Preaching about the cross sounds foolish to those who are dying in sin. But it is the power of God to those of us who are being saved from the punishment of sin. ¹⁹ The Holy Writings say, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise people. I will put aside the learning of those who think they know a lot.” ^{(A) 20} Where is the man who is wise? Where is the man who thinks he knows a lot? Where is the man who thinks he has all the answers? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish. ²¹ In His wisdom, He did not allow man to come to know Him through the wisdom of this world. It pleased God to save men from the punishment of their sins through preaching the Good News. This preaching sounds foolish. ²² The Jews are looking for something special to see. The Greek people are looking for the answer in wisdom. ²³ But we preach that Christ died on a cross to save them from their sins. These words are hard for the Jews to listen to. The Greek people think it is foolish. ²⁴ Christ is the power and wisdom of God to those who are chosen to be saved from the punishment of sin for both Jews and Greeks. ²⁵ God’s plan looked foolish to men, but it is wiser than the best plans of men. God’s plan which may look weak is stronger than the strongest plans of men.

God’s Wisdom—Human Wisdom

²⁶ Christian brothers, think who you were when the Lord called you. Not many of you were wise or powerful or born into the family of leaders of a country. ²⁷ But God has chosen what the world calls foolish to shame the wise. He has chosen what the world calls weak to shame what is strong. ²⁸ God has chosen what is weak and foolish of the world, what is hated and not known, to destroy the things the world trusts in. ²⁹ In that way, no man can be proud as he stands before God. ³⁰ God Himself made the way so you can have new life through Christ Jesus. God gave us Christ to be our wisdom. Christ made us right with God and set us apart for God and made us holy. Christ bought us with His blood and made us free from our sins. ³¹ It is as the Holy Writings say, “If anyone is going to be proud of anything, he should be proud of the Lord.”

Paul Received the Good News from God

2 Christian brothers, when I came to you, I did not preach the secrets of God with big sounding words or make it sound as if I were so wise. ² I made up my mind that while I was with you I would speak of nothing except Jesus Christ and of His death on the cross. ³ When I was with you, I was weak. I was afraid and I shook. ⁴ What I had to say when I preached was not in big sounding words of man’s wisdom. But it was given in the power of the Holy Spirit. ⁵ In this way, you do not have faith in Christ because of the wisdom of men. You have faith in Christ because of the power of God.

True Wisdom Comes from God

⁶ We speak wisdom to full-grown Christians. This wisdom is not from this world or from the leaders of today. They die and their wisdom dies with them. ⁷ What we preach is God’s wisdom. It was a secret until now. God planned for us to have this honor before the world began. ⁸ None of the world leaders understood this wisdom. If they had, they would not have put Christ up on a cross to die. He is the Lord of shining-greatness. ⁹ The Holy Writings say, “No eye has ever seen or no ear has ever heard or no mind has ever thought of the wonderful things God has made ready for those who love Him.” ^{(B) 10} God has shown these things to us through His Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit Who looks into all things, even the secrets of God, and shows them to us. ¹¹ Who can know the things about a man, except a man’s own spirit that is in him? It is the same with God. Who can understand Him except the Holy Spirit? ¹² We have not received the spirit of the world. God has given us His Holy Spirit that we may know about the things given to us by Him. ¹³ We speak about these things also. We do not use words of man’s wisdom. We use words given to us by the Holy Spirit. We use these words to tell what the Holy Spirit wants to say to those who put their trust in Him. ¹⁴ But the person who is not a Christian does not understand these words from the Holy Spirit. He thinks they are foolish. He cannot understand them because he does not have the Holy Spirit to help him understand. ¹⁵ The full-grown Christian understands all things, and yet he is not understood. ¹⁶ For who has the thoughts of the Lord? Who can tell Him what to do? But we have the thoughts of Christ.

3 Christian brothers, I could not speak to you as to full-grown Christians. I spoke to you as men who have not obeyed the things you have been taught. I spoke to you as if you were baby Christians. ² My teaching was as if I were giving you milk to drink. I could not give you meat because you were not ready for it. Even yet you are not able to have anything but milk. ³ You still live as men who are not Christians. When you are jealous and fight with each other, you are still living in sin and acting like sinful men in the world. ⁴ When one says, “I am a follower of Paul,” and another says, “I am a follower of Apollos,” does not this sound like the talk of baby Christians? ⁵ Who is Apollos? Who is Paul? We are only servants owned by God. He gave us gifts to preach His Word. And because of that, you put your trust in Christ. ⁶ I planted the seed. Apollos watered it, but it was God Who kept it growing. ⁷ This shows that the one who plants or the one who waters is not the important one. God is the important One. He makes it grow. ⁸ The one who plants and the one who waters are alike. Each one will receive his own reward. ⁹ For we work together with God. You are God’s field.

You are God’s building also. ¹⁰ Through God’s loving-favor to me, I laid the stones on which the building was to be built. I did it like one who knew what he was doing. Now another person is building on it. Each person who builds must be careful how he builds on it. ¹¹ Jesus Christ is the Stone on which other stones for the building must be laid. It can be only Christ. ¹² Now if a man builds on the Stone with gold or silver or beautiful stones, or if he builds with wood or grass or straw, ¹³ each man’s work will become known. There will be a day when it will be tested by fire. The fire will show what kind of work it is. ¹⁴ If a man builds on work that lasts, he will receive his reward. ¹⁵ If his work is burned up, he will lose it. Yet he himself will be saved as if he were going through a fire.

¹⁶ Do you not know that you are a house of God and that the Holy Spirit lives in you? ¹⁷ If any man destroys the house of God, God will destroy him. God’s house is holy. You are the place where He lives.

¹⁸ Do not fool yourself. If anyone thinks he knows a lot about the things of this world, he had better become a fool. Then he may become wise. ¹⁹ The wisdom of this world is foolish to God. The Holy Writings say, “He is the One Who gets them in a trap when they use their own wisdom.” ^{(C) 20} They also say, “The Lord knows how the wise man thinks. His thinking is worth nothing.” ^{(D) 21} As a Christian, do not be proud of men and of what they can do. All things belong to you. ²² Paul and Apollos and Peter belong to you. The world and life and death belong to you. Things now and things to come belong to you. ²³ You belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

Servants of Christ

4 Think of us as servants who are owned by Christ. It is our job to share the secrets of God. ² A servant must be faithful to his owner. This is expected of him. ³ It is not the most important thing to me what you or any other people think of me. Even what I think of myself does not mean much. ⁴ As for me, my heart tells me I am not guilty of anything. But that does not prove I am free from guilt. It is the Lord Who looks into my life and says what is wrong. ⁵ Do not be quick to say who is right or wrong. Wait until the Lord comes. He will bring into the light the things that are hidden in men’s hearts. He will show why men have done these things. Every man will receive from God the thanks he should have.

⁶ Christian brothers, I have used Apollos and myself to show you what I am talking about. This is to help you so you will not think more of men than what God’s Word will allow. Never think more of one of God’s servants than another. ⁷ Who made you better than your brother? Or what do you have that has not been given to you? If God has given you everything, why do you have pride? Why do you act as if He did not give it to you? ⁸ You are full. You are rich. You live like kings and we do not. I wish you were kings and we could be leaders with you. ⁹ I think that God has made a show of us missionaries. We are the last and the least among men. We are like men waiting to be put to death. The whole world, men and angels alike, are watching us. ¹⁰ We are thought of as fools because of Christ. But you are thought of as wise Christians! We are weak. You are strong. People respect you. They have no respect for us. ¹¹ To this hour we are hungry and thirsty, and our clothes are worn out. People hurt us. We have no homes.

¹² We work with our hands to make a living. We speak kind words to those who speak against us. When people hurt us, we say nothing. ¹³ When people say bad things about us, we answer with kind words. People think of us as dirt that is worth nothing and as the worst thing on earth to this day.

Follow Paul’s Way of Life

¹⁴ I do not write these things to shame you. I am doing this to help you know what you should do. You are my much-loved children. ¹⁵ You may have 10,000 Christian teachers. But remember, I am the only father you have. You became Christians when I preached the Good News to you. ¹⁶ So I ask you with all my heart to follow the way I live. ¹⁷ For this reason I have sent Timothy to you. He is my much-loved child and a faithful Christian. He will tell you how I act as a Christian. This is the kind of life I teach in the churches wherever I go.

¹⁸ Some of you are full of pride. You think that I am not coming to visit you. ¹⁹ If the Lord wants me to, I will come soon. I will find out when I come if these proud people have God’s power, or if they just use a lot of big words. ²⁰ The holy nation of God is not made up of words. It is made up of power. ²¹ What do you want? Do you want me to come with a stick to whip you? Or do you want me to come with love and a gentle spirit?