1 Corinthians 1

₁God decided to choose me, Paul, to be an apostle of Christ Jesus. Sosthenes, who is also a believer, and I ₂are writing this letter to you, the congregation of God in Corinth. God has consecrated you to Him and you believe in Christ Jesus. Yes, God has chosen you to belong to Him. We also write to all the believers who worship our Lord Jesus Christ, wherever they live. Jesus is their Lord and our Lord. ₃We pray that God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ will give you grace and peace.

₄I always thank my God when I think of you in Corinth. I thank Him, because God has been merciful to you because you believe in Jesus Christ. ₅Yes, God has blessed you a lot because you belong to Christ Jesus. You understand the Good_News of Jesus Christ and you explain it well to other people. ₆You can do this because you believe the message that the apostles have told you. ₇You have received all the spiritual_gifts that the Lord gave you. And you keep on waiting for the day when God will show our Lord Jesus Christ to everyone so that we can see Him. ₈God will help you believe until the end. No one will be able to accuse you on the day when our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. ₉God will do what He has promised. He has chosen you to be with his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

₁₀Friends, you belong to our Lord Jesus Christ and that is why I beg all of you to agree and to work together. You must not have different groups who work against each other. You must be willing to accept each other and agree to work together. ₁₁Friends, some people from Chloe's family have told me that you argue with each other. ₁₂You argue when some of you say: ‘I belong to Paul’ and some of you say: ‘I belong to Apollos’ and others say: ‘I belong to Cephas’ and another one says: ‘I belong to Christ.’

₁₃No, we can not divide Christ into different groups. And God did not send me, Paul, to be crucified to forgive your sins. When you were baptised, it was not in my name so that you could become disciples of Paul. ₁₄I thank God that I did not baptise any one of you. I baptised only Crispus and Gaius. ₁₅So no one can say that he was baptised to belong to me. ₁₆Yes, I also baptised the family of Stephanas. I am not sure if I baptised anyone else. ₁₇Christ did not send me to baptise. He sent me to tell the Good_News about Him. I have preached the Good_News, but I did not do it using the clever words of people, because if I had done that, then it would have taken away the power of the Good_News that Christ has died on the cross.

₁₈Yes, the people who are lost think that the message of the cross is foolish. But God has saved us and for us the cross shows the power of God. ₁₉In the Old_Testament it is written:

₂₀The wise men of this world, the teachers_of_the_Laws, the people who know how to argue and talk very well, are not_really great. Everything that God has done shows that the clever things that people think are foolish. ₂₁God was right when He decided that the clever things that the people of this world think can not help them to know the Lord. The people of this world say the Good_News about Jesus is foolish, but God decided to save those people who believe this message. ₂₂The Jews want to see miracles and the Greeks want to listen to clever things, ₂₃but we preach the message that Christ has died on a cross. The Jews do not understand this and the Gentiles say it is foolish. ₂₄But God has chosen people, Jews and Greeks, and they know that Christ is the power and the wisdom that comes from God. ₂₅Because the people of this world say the message of Christ is foolish, but this message shows that God is wiser than all people. The people of this world say God showed that He is weak when Christ died on the cross, but when God did that, He showed that He is stronger than all people.

₂₆Friends, God has chosen you, but look who you are. You are not clever or important people and you do not have important families. ₂₇There are things that are foolish to the people of this world, but God chose those things to help the clever people understand that they know nothing. And there are things that are unimportant to the people of this world, but God has chosen those things to show the important people that they are not important. ₂₈And there are things that are not important to the people of this world. They think these things are nothing and that people must throw them away. But God has chosen those things to show the people of the world that those things are important to Him and that the things of the world are worthless. ₂₉Why did God do this? He did this so that no one can boast and say he is better than other people. ₃₀It is God who made you believe in Jesus Christ. Yes, if we believe in Jesus Christ, we see the wisdom of God. We see that He has made us right with Him and that He will not punish us, that He has made us holy for Him and that He has set us free from sin. ₃₁That is why the words are true that are written in the Old_Testament: