1Corinthians:1

---

Seeker Overlay ON

* Paul , called to be an Apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God –and our brother Sosthenes : * To the Church of God in Corinth , men and women consecrated in Christ Jesus , called to be saints , with all in every place who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ – their Lord as well as ours . * May grace and peace be granted to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ . * I thank my God continually on your behalf for the grace of God bestowed on you in Christ Jesus – * that you have been so richly blessed in Him , with readiness of speech and fulness of knowledge . * Thus my testimony as to the Christ has been confirmed in your experience , * so that there is no gift of God in which you consciously come short while patiently waiting for the reappearing of our Lord Jesus Christ , * who will also keep you stedfast to the very End , so that you will be free from reproach on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ . * God is ever true to His promises , and it was by Him that you were , one and all , called into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ , our Lord . * Now I entreat you , brethren , in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ , to cultivate a spirit of harmony –all of you – and that there be no divisions among you , but rather a perfect union through your having one mind and one judgement . * For I have been distinctly informed , my brethren , about you by Chloe 's people , that there are dissensions among you . * What I mean is that each of you is a partisan . One man says »I belong to Paul ;« another »I belong to Apollos ;« a third »I belong to Peter ;« a fourth »I belong to Christ .« * Is the Christ in fragments ? Is it Paul who was crucified on your behalf ? Or were you baptized to be Paul 's adherents ? * I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius – * for fear people should say that you were baptized to be my adherents . * I did , however , baptize Stephanas ' household also : but I do not think that I baptized any one else . * Christ did not send me to baptize , but to proclaim the Good News ; and not in merely wise words –lest the Cross of Christ should be deprived of its power . * For the Message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are on the way to perdition , but it is the power of God to those whom He is saving . * For so it stands written , * Where is your wise man ? Where your expounder of the Law ? Where your investigator of the questions of this present age ? Has not God shown the world 's wisdom to be utter foolishness ? * For after the world by its wisdom –as God in His wisdom had ordained – had failed to gain the knowledge of God , God was pleased , by the apparent foolishness of the Message which we preach , to save those who accepted it . * Seeing that Jews demand miracles , and Greeks go in search of wisdom , * while we proclaim a Christ who has been crucified –to the Jews a stumbling-block , to Gentiles foolishness , * but to those who have received the Call , whether Jews or Greeks , Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God . * Because that which the world deems foolish in God is wiser than men 's wisdom , and that which it deems feeble in God is mightier than men 's might . * For consider , brethren , God 's call to you . Not many who are wise with merely human wisdom , not many of position and influence , not many of noble birth have been called . * But God has chosen the things which the world regards as foolish , in order to put its wise men to shame ; and God has chosen the things which the world regards as destitute of influence , in order to put its powerful things to shame ; * and the things which the world regards as base , and those which it sets utterly at nought –things that have no existence – God has chosen in order to reduce to nothing things that do exist ; * to prevent any mortal man from boasting in the presence of God . * But you –and it is all God 's doing – are in Christ Jesus : He has become for us a wisdom which is from God , consisting of righteousness and sanctification and deliverance ; * in order that it may be as Scripture says ,

---