1 Corinthians 1 NLT
1 This letter is from Paul, chosen by the
will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and from our brother Sosthenes.
2 I am writing to God’s church in Corinth,
to you who have been called by God to be his own holy people. He made you holy
by means of Christ Jesus, just as he did for all people everywhere who call on
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.
3 May God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ give you grace and peace.
4 I always thank my God for you and for
the gracious gifts he has given you, now that you belong to Christ Jesus.
5 Through him, God has enriched your
church in every way—with all of your eloquent words and all of your knowledge.
6 This confirms that what I told you about
Christ is true.
7Now you have every spiritual gift you need as
you eagerly wait for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ.
8 He will keep you strong to the end so
that you will be free from all blame on the day when our Lord Jesus Christ
returns.
9 God will do this, for he is faithful to
do what he says, and he has invited you into partnership with his Son, Jesus
Christ our Lord.
10 I appeal to you, dear brothers and
sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live in harmony with
each other. Let there be no divisions in the church. Rather, be of one mind,
united in thought and purpose.
11 For some members of Chloe’s household
have told me about your quarrels, my dear brothers and sisters.
12 Some of you are saying, “I am a follower
of Paul.” Others are saying, “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Peter, ” or “I
follow only Christ.”
13 Has Christ been divided into factions?
Was I, Paul, crucified for you? Were any of you baptized in the name of Paul?
Of course not!
14 I thank God that I did not baptize any
of you except Crispus and Gaius,
15 for now no one can say they were
baptized in my name.
16 (Oh yes, I also baptized the household
of Stephanas, but I don’t remember baptizing anyone else.)
17 For Christ didn’t send me to baptize,
but to preach the Good News—and not with clever speech, for fear that the cross
of Christ would lose its power.
18 The message of the cross is foolish to
those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the
very power of God.
19 As the Scriptures say, “I will destroy
the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent.”
20 So where does this leave the
philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters? God has made
the wisdom of this world look foolish.
21 Since God in his wisdom saw to it that
the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish
preaching to save those who believe.
22 It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for
signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom.
23 So when we preach that Christ was
crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense.
24 But to those called by God to salvation,
both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
25 This foolish plan of God is wiser than
the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of
human strength.
26Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few
of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called
you.
27 Instead, God chose things the world
considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose
things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful.
28 God chose things despised by the world,
things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the
world considers important.
29 As a result, no one can ever boast in
the presence of God.
30God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our
benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he
made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin.
31 Therefore, as the Scriptures say, “If
you want to boast, boast only about the LORD .”
1
Corinthians 2 NLT
1 When I first came to you, dear brothers
and sisters, I didn’t use lofty words and impressive wisdom to tell you God’s
secret plan.
2 For I decided that while I was with you
I would forget everything except Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified.
3 I came to you in weakness—timid and
trembling.
4 And my message and my preaching were
very plain. Rather than using clever and persuasive speeches, I relied only on
the power of the Holy Spirit.
5 I did this so you would trust not in
human wisdom but in the power of God.
6 Yet when I am among mature believers, I
do speak with words of wisdom, but not the kind of wisdom that belongs to this
world or to the rulers of this world, who are soon forgotten.
7 No, the wisdom we speak of is the
mystery of God —his plan that was previously hidden, even though he made it for
our ultimate glory before the world began.
8 But the rulers of this world have not
understood it; if they had, they would not have crucified our glorious Lord.
9 That is what the Scriptures mean when
they say, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God
has prepared for those who love him.”
10But it was to us that God revealed these
things by his Spirit. For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s
deep secrets.
11 No one can know a person’s thoughts
except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except
God’s own Spirit.
12 And we have received God’s Spirit (not
the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given
us.
13 When we tell you these things, we do not
use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by
the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths.
14 But people who aren’t spiritual can’t
receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they
can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the
Spirit means.
15 Those who are spiritual can evaluate all
things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others.
16 For, “Who can know the LORD ’s thoughts?
Who knows enough to teach him?” But we understand these things, for we have the
mind of Christ.
1 Corinthians 3 NLT
1 Dear brothers and sisters, when I was
with you I couldn’t talk to you as I would to spiritual people. I had to talk
as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in Christ.
2 I had to feed you with milk, not with
solid food, because you weren’t ready for anything stronger. And you still
aren’t ready,
3 for you are still controlled by your
sinful nature. You are jealous of one another and quarrel with each other.
Doesn’t that prove you are controlled by your sinful nature? Aren’t you living
like people of the world?
4When one of you says, “I am
a follower of Paul,” and another says, “I follow Apollos,” aren’t you acting
just like people of the world?
