1To the church of God in Corinth, to those who have been consecrated by union with Christ Jesus and called to become his people, and also to all, wherever they may be, who invoke the name of our Lord Jesus Christ – their Master and ours,
2from Paul, who has been called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and from Sosthenes, our fellow follower of the Lord.
3May God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ bless you and give you peace.
4I always thank God for you. I thank him for the blessing bestowed on you in Christ Jesus.
5For through union with him you were enriched in every way – in your power to preach, and in your knowledge of the truth;
6and so became yourselves a confirmation of my testimony to the Christ.
7There is no gift in which you are deficient, while waiting for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.
8And God himself will strengthen you to the end, so that at the day of our Lord Jesus Christ you may be found blameless.
9God will not fail you, and it is he who called you into communion with his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. The State of the Church at Corinth
10But I appeal to you, my friends, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to agree in what you profess, and not to allow divisions to exist among you, but to be united – of one mind and of one opinion.
11For I have been informed, my friends, by the members of Chloe’s household, that party feeling exists among you.
12I mean this: that every one of you says either ‘I follow Paul,’ or ‘I Apollos,’ or ‘I Cephas,’ or ‘I Christ.’
13You have torn the Christ in pieces! Was it Paul who was crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
14I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius,
15so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name.
16I baptized also the household of Stephanas. I do not know that I baptized anyone else.
17My mission from Christ was not to baptize, but to tell the good news; not, however, in the language of philosophy, in case the cross of the Christ should be robbed of its meaning.
18The message of the cross is indeed mere folly to those who are on the path to ruin, but to us who are on the path of salvation it is the power of God.
19For scripture says – ‘I will bring the philosophy of the philosophers to naught, and the shrewdness of the shrewd I will bring to nothing.’
20Where is the philosopher? Where the teacher of the Law? Where the disputant of today? Has not God shown the world’s philosophy to be folly?
21For since the world, in God’s wisdom, did not by its philosophy learn to know God, God saw fit, by the ‘folly’ of our proclamation, to save those who believe in Christ!
22While Jews ask for miraculous signs, and Greeks study philosophy,
23we are proclaiming Christ crucified! – to the Jews an obstacle, to the Gentiles mere folly,
24but to those who have received the call, whether Jews or Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God!
25For God’s ‘folly’ is wiser than people, and God’s ‘weakness’ is stronger than people.
26Look at the facts of your call, friends. There are not many among you who are wise, as people reckon wisdom, not many who are influential, not many who are high-born;
27but God chose what the world counts foolish to put its wise to shame, and God chose what the world counts weak to put its strong to shame,
28and God chose what the world counts poor and insignificant – things that to it are unreal – to bring its ‘realities’ to nothing,
29so that in his presence no one should boast.
30But you, by your union with Christ Jesus, belong to God; and Christ, by God’s will, became not only our wisdom, but also our righteousness, holiness, and deliverance,
31so that – in the words of scripture – ‘Whoever boasts should boast of the Lord!’