1Corinthians:1-3

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* 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 , * And as for myself , brethren , when I came to you , it was not with surpassing power of eloquence or earthly wisdom that I came , announcing to you that which God had commanded me to bear witness to . * For I determined to be utterly ignorant , when among you , of everything except of Jesus Christ , and of Him as having been crucified . * And so far as I myself was concerned , I came to you in conscious feebleness and in fear and in deep anxiety . * And my language and the Message that I proclaimed were not adorned with persuasive words of earthly wisdom , but depended upon truths which the Spirit taught and mightily carried home ; * so that your trust might rest not on the wisdom of man but on the power of God . * Yet when we are among mature believers we do speak words of wisdom ; a wisdom not belonging , however , to the present age nor to the leaders of the present age who are soon to pass away . * But in dealing with truths hitherto kept secret we speak of God 's wisdom –that hidden wisdom which , before the world began , God pre-destined , so that it should result in glory to us ; * a wisdom which not one of the leaders of the present age possesses , for if they had possessed it , they would never have crucified the Lord of glory . * But –to use the words of Scripture – we speak of and which have never entered the heart of man : * For us , however , God has drawn aside the veil through the teaching of the Spirit ; for the Spirit searches everything , including the depths of the divine nature . * For , among human beings , who knows a man 's inner thoughts except the man 's own spirit within him ? In the same way , also , only God 's Spirit is acquainted with God 's inner thoughts . * But we have not received the spirit of the world , but the Spirit which comes forth from God , that we may know the blessings that have been so freely given to us by God . * Of these we speak –not in language which man 's wisdom teaches us , but in that which the Spirit teaches – adapting , as we do , spiritual words to spiritual truths . * The unspiritual man rejects the things of the Spirit of God , and cannot attain to the knowledge of them , because they are spiritually judged . * But the spiritual man judges of everything , although he is himself judged by no one . * For But have the mind of Christ . * And as for myself , brethren , I found it impossible to speak to you as spiritual men . It had to be as to worldlings –mere babes in Christ . * I fed you with milk and not with solid food , since for this you were not yet strong enough . And even now you are not strong enough : * you are still unspiritual . For so long as jealousy and strife continue among you , can it be denied that you are unspiritual and are living and acting like mere men of the world ? * For when some one says , »I belong to Paul ,« and another says , »I belong to Apollos ,« is not this the way men of the world speak ? * What then is Apollos ? And what is Paul ? They are just God 's servants , through whose efforts , and as the Lord granted power to each , you accepted the faith . * I planted and Apollos watered ; but it was God who was , all the time , giving the increase . * So that neither the planter nor the waterer is of any importance . God who gives the increase is all in all . * Now in aim and purpose the planter and the waterer are one ; and yet each will receive his own special reward , answering to his own special work . * Apollos and I are simply fellow workers for and with God , and you are field – building . * In discharge of the task which God graciously entrusted to me , I –like a competent master-builder – have laid a foundation , and others are building upon it . But let every one be careful how and what he builds . * For no one can lay any other foundation in addition to that which is already laid , namely Jesus Christ . * And whether the building which any one is erecting on that foundation be of gold or silver or costly stones , of timber or hay or straw – * the true character of each individual 's work will become manifest . For the day of Christ will disclose it , because that day is soon to come upon us clothed in fire , and as for the quality of every one 's work – the fire is the thing which will test it . * If any one 's work –the building which he has erected – stands the test , he will be rewarded . * If any one 's work is burnt up , he will suffer the loss of it ; yet he will himself be rescued , but only , as it were , by passing through the fire . * Do you not know that you are God 's Sanctuary , and that the Spirit of God has His home within you ? * If any one is marring the Sanctuary of God , him will God mar ; for the Sanctuary of God is holy , which you all are . * Let no one deceive himself . If any man imagines that he is wise , compared with the rest of you , with the wisdom of the present age , let him become »foolish « so that he may be wise . * This world 's wisdom is »foolishness « in God 's sight ; for it is written , * And again , * Therefore let no one boast about his human teachers . * For everything belongs to you –be it Paul or Apollos or Peter , the world or life or death , things present or future – everything belongs to you ; * and you belong to Christ , and Christ belongs to God . * As for us Apostles , let any one take this view of us –we are Christ 's officers , and stewards of God 's secret truths .

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