Chapter 1

¹Paul, by the will of God called as an apostle of Jesus Christ, and our brother Sosthenes, ²to the church of God at Corinth, to those who are consecrated by union with Christ Jesus, and called as God’s people, like all those anywhere who call on the name of Jesus Christ, their Lord as well as ours; ³God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ bless you and give you peace.

⁴I am always thanking God about you, for the blessing God has given you through Christ Jesus. ⁵For you have grown rich in everything through union with him—in power of expression and in capacity for knowledge. ⁶So your experience has confirmed the testimony that I bore to Christ, ⁷and there is no gift that you lack even while you are waiting for our Lord Jesus Christ to reappear, ⁸and at the Day of our Lord Jesus Christ he will insure your complete vindication. ⁹God can be depended on, and it was he who called you to this fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

¹⁰But I urge you all, brothers, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, to agree in what you say, and not to allow factions among you, but to be perfectly united in mind and judgment. ¹¹For I have been informed, my brothers, by Chloe’s people, that quarrels are going on among you. ¹²What I mean is this, that one of you says, “I am a follower of Paul,” another, “And I, of Apollos,” another, “And I, of Cephas,” and another, “And I, of Christ!” ¹³Christ has been divided up! But was it Paul who was crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? ¹⁴I am thankful that I never baptized any of you except Crispus and Gaius, ¹⁵so that no one could say that you were baptized in my name. ¹⁶And I did baptize the members of the household of Stephanas too; I do not know whether I baptized anyone else besides. ¹⁷For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the good news—but not with fine language, or the cross of Christ might seem an empty thing.

¹⁸For to those who are on the way to destruction, the story of the cross is nonsense, but to us who are to be saved, it means all the power of God. ¹⁹For the Scripture says,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,

And I will thwart the shrewdness of the shrewd!”

²⁰Where now is your philosopher? Your scribe? Your reasoner of today? Has not God made a fool of the world’s wisdom?

²¹For since in God’s providence the world with all its wisdom did not come to know God, God chose, through the folly of the gospel message, to save those who had faith in him. ²²For Jews insist upon miracles, and Greeks demand philosophy, ²³but we proclaim a Christ who was crucified—an idea that is revolting to Jews and absurd to the heathen, ²⁴but to those whom God has called, whether they are Jews or Greeks, a Christ who is God’s power and God’s wisdom. ²⁵For God’s folly is beyond the wisdom of men, and God’s weakness is beyond their strength.

²⁶For consider, brothers, what happened when God called you. Not many of you were what men call wise, not many of you were influential, not many were of high birth. ²⁷But it was what the world calls foolish that God chose to put the wise to shame with, and it was what the world calls weak that God chose to shame its strength with, ²⁸and it was what the world calls low and insignificant and unreal that God chose to nullify its realities, ²⁹so that in his presence no human being might have anything to boast of. ³⁰But you are his children, through your union with Christ Jesus, whom God has made our wisdom—our uprightness and consecration and redemption, ³¹so that, as the Scripture says, “Let him who would boast, boast of the Lord!”