1 I, Paul, am writing this letter. I have been chosen to be an apostle of Christ Jesus just as God planned. Our brother Sosthenes joins me in writing.

² We are sending this letter to you, the members of God’s church in Corinth. You have been made holy because you belong to Christ Jesus. God has chosen you to be his holy people. He has done the same for all people everywhere who pray to our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is their Lord and ours.

³ May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.

Paul Gives Thanks

⁴ I always thank my God for you. I thank him because of the grace he has given to you who belong to Christ Jesus. ⁵ You have been blessed in every way because of him. You have been blessed in all your speech and knowledge. ⁶ God has shown that what we have spoken to you about Christ is true. ⁷ There is no gift of the Holy Spirit that you don’t have. You are full of hope as you wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to come again. ⁸ God will also keep you strong in faith to the very end. Then you will be without blame on the day our Lord Jesus Christ returns. ⁹ God is faithful. He has chosen you to share life with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Taking Sides in the Church

¹⁰ Brothers and sisters, I make my appeal to you. I do this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I ask that all of you agree with one another in what you say. I ask that you don’t take sides. I ask that you are in complete agreement in all that you think. ¹¹ My brothers and sisters, I have been told you are arguing with one another. Some people from Chloe’s house have told me this. ¹² Here is what I mean. One of you says, “I follow Paul.” Another says, “I follow Apollos.” Another says, “I follow Peter.” And still another says, “I follow Christ.”

¹³ Does Christ take sides? Did Paul die on the cross for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? ¹⁴ I thank God that I didn’t baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius. ¹⁵ No one can say that you were baptized in my name. ¹⁶ It’s true that I also baptized those who live in the house of Stephanas. Besides that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else. ¹⁷ Christ did not send me to baptize. He sent me to preach the good news. He commanded me not to preach with wisdom and fancy words. That would take all the power away from the cross of Christ.

Christ Is God’s Power and Wisdom

¹⁸ The message of the cross seems foolish to those who are lost and dying. But it is God’s power to us who are being saved. ¹⁹ It is written,

²⁰ Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where are the great thinkers of our time? Hasn’t God made the wisdom of the world foolish? ²¹ God wisely planned that the world would not know him through its own wisdom. It pleased God to use the foolish things we preach to save those who believe. ²² Jews require signs. Greeks look for wisdom. ²³ But we preach about Christ and his death on the cross. That is very hard for Jews to accept. And everyone else thinks it’s foolish. ²⁴ But there are those God has chosen, both Jews and Greeks. To them Christ is God’s power and God’s wisdom. ²⁵ The foolish things of God are wiser than human wisdom. The weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

²⁶ Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when God chose you. Not many of you were considered wise by human standards. Not many of you were powerful. Not many of you belonged to important families. ²⁷ But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. ²⁸ God chose the things of this world that are common and looked down on. God chose things considered unimportant to do away with things considered important. ²⁹ So no one can boast to God. ³⁰ Because of what God has done, you belong to Christ Jesus. He has become God’s wisdom for us. He makes us right with God. He makes us holy and sets us free. ³¹ It is written, “The one who boasts should boast about what the Lord has done.” (Jeremiah 9:24)

2 And this was the way it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I didn’t come with fancy words or human wisdom. I preached to you the truth about God’s love. ² My goal while I was with you was to talk about only one thing. And that was Jesus Christ and his death on the cross. ³ When I came to you, I was weak and very afraid and trembling all over. ⁴ I didn’t preach my message with clever and compelling words. Instead, my preaching showed the Holy Spirit’s power. ⁵ This was so that your faith would be based on God’s power. Your faith would not be based on human wisdom.

God’s Wisdom Through the Holy Spirit

⁶ The words we speak to those who have grown in the faith are wise. Our words are different from the wisdom of this world. Our words are different from those of the rulers of this world. These rulers are becoming less and less powerful. ⁷ No, we announce God’s wisdom. His wisdom is a mystery that has been hidden. But before time began, God planned that his wisdom would bring us heavenly glory. ⁸ None of the rulers of this world understood God’s wisdom. If they had, they would not have nailed the Lord of glory to the cross. ⁹ It is written that

¹⁰ God has shown these things to us through his Spirit.

The Spirit understands all things. He understands even the deep things of God. ¹¹ Who can know the thoughts of another person? Only a person’s own spirit can know them. In the same way, only the Spirit of God knows God’s thoughts. ¹² What we have received is not the spirit of the world. We have received the Spirit who is from God. The Spirit helps us understand what God has freely given us. ¹³ That is what we speak about. We don’t use words taught to us by people. We use words taught to us by the Holy Spirit. We use the words taught by the Spirit to explain spiritual truths. ¹⁴ The person without the Spirit doesn’t accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. These things are foolish to them. They can’t understand them. In fact, such things can’t be understood without the Spirit’s help. ¹⁵ The person who has the Spirit can judge all things. But no human being can judge those who have the Spirit. It is written,

But we have the mind of Christ.

The Church and Its Leaders

3 Brothers and sisters, I couldn’t speak to you as people who live by the Holy Spirit. I had to speak to you as people who were still following the ways of the world. You aren’t growing as Christ wants you to. You are still like babies. ² The words I spoke to you were like milk, not like solid food. You weren’t ready for solid food yet. And you still aren’t ready for it. ³ You are still following the ways of the world. Some of you are jealous. Some of you argue. So aren’t you following the ways of the world? Aren’t you acting like ordinary human beings? ⁴ One of you says, “I follow Paul.” Another says, “I follow Apollos.” Aren’t you acting like ordinary human beings?

⁵ After all, what is Apollos? And what is Paul? We are only people who serve. We helped you to believe. The Lord has given each of us our own work to do. ⁶ I planted the seed. Apollos watered it. But God has been making it grow. ⁷ So the one who plants is not important. The one who waters is not important. It is God who makes things grow. He is the important one. ⁸ The one who plants and the one who waters have the same purpose. The Lord will give each of them a reward for their work. ⁹ We work together to serve God. You are like God’s field. You are like his building.

¹⁰ God has given me the grace to lay a foundation as a wise builder. Now someone else is building on it. But each one should build carefully. ¹¹ No one can lay any other foundation than what has already been laid. That foundation is Jesus Christ. ¹² A person may build on it using gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay or straw. ¹³ But each person’s work will be shown for what it is. On judgment day it will be brought to light. It will be put through fire. The fire will test how good each person’s work is. ¹⁴ If the building doesn’t burn up, God will give the builder a reward for the work. ¹⁵ If the building burns up, the builder will lose everything. The builder will be saved, but only like one escaping through the flames.

¹⁶ Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple? Don’t you know that God’s Spirit lives among you? ¹⁷ If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. God’s temple is holy. And you all together are that temple.

¹⁸ Don’t fool yourselves. Suppose some of you think you are wise by the standards of the world. Then you should become “fools” so that you can become wise. ¹⁹ The wisdom of this world is foolish in God’s eyes. It is written, “God catches wise people in their own evil plans.” (Job 5:13) ²⁰ It is also written, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of wise people don’t amount to anything.” (Psalm 94:11) ²¹ So no more bragging about human leaders! All things are yours. ²² That means Paul or Apollos or Peter or the world or life or death or the present or the future. All are yours. ²³ You are joined to Christ and belong to him. And Christ is joined to God.

True Apostles of Christ

4 So here is how you should think of us. We serve Christ. We are trusted with the mysteries God has shown us. ² Those who have been given a trust must prove that they are faithful. ³ I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court. I don’t even judge myself. ⁴ I don’t feel I have done anything wrong. But that doesn’t mean I’m not guilty. The Lord judges me. ⁵ So don’t judge anything before the appointed time. Wait until the Lord returns. He will bring to light what is hidden in the dark. He will show the real reasons why people do what they do. At that time each person will receive their praise from God.

⁶ Brothers and sisters, I have used myself and Apollos as examples to help you. You can learn from us the meaning of the saying, “Don’t go beyond what is written.” Then you won’t be proud that you follow one of us instead of the other. ⁷ Who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you brag as though you did not?

⁸ You already have everything you want, don’t you? Have you already become rich? Have you already begun to rule? And did you do that without us? I wish that you really had begun to rule. Then we could also rule with you! ⁹ It seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of a parade. We are like people sentenced to die in front of a crowd. We have been made a show for the whole creation to see. Angels and people are staring at us. ¹⁰ We are fools for Christ. But you are so wise in Christ! We are weak. But you are so strong! You are honored. But we are looked down on! ¹¹ Up to this very hour we are hungry and thirsty. We are dressed in rags. We are being treated badly. We have no homes. ¹² We work hard with our own hands. When others curse us, we bless them. When we are attacked, we put up with it. ¹³ When others say bad things about us, we answer with kind words. We have become the world’s garbage. We are everybody’s trash, right up to this moment.

Paul Warns Against Pride

¹⁴ I am not writing this to shame you. You are my dear children, and I want to warn you. ¹⁵ Suppose you had 10,000 believers in Christ watching over you. You still wouldn’t have many fathers. I became your father by serving Christ Jesus and telling you the good news. ¹⁶ So I’m asking you to follow my example. ¹⁷ That’s the reason I have sent Timothy to you. He is like a son to me, and I love him. He is faithful in serving the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in serving Christ Jesus. And that agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.

¹⁸ Some of you have become proud. You act as if I weren’t coming to you. ¹⁹ But I will come very soon, if that’s what the Lord wants. Then I will find out how those proud people are talking. I will also find out what power they have. ²⁰ The kingdom of God is not a matter of talk. It is a matter of power. ²¹ Which do you want? Should I come to you to correct and punish you? Or should I come in love and with a gentle spirit?