Parallel Bible results for "1 Corinthians 1"

1 Corinthians 1

The Message Bible MSG

1 I, Paul, have been called and sent by Jesus, the Messiah, according to God's plan, along with my friend Sosthenes.

2 I send this letter to you in God's church at Corinth, Christians cleaned up by Jesus and set apart for a God-filled life. I include in my greeting all who call out to Jesus, wherever they live. He's their Master as well as ours!

3 May all the gifts and benefits that come from God our Father, and the Master, Jesus Christ, be yours.

4 Every time I think of you - and I think of you often! - I thank God for your lives of free and open access to God, given by Jesus.

5 There's no end to what has happened in you - it's beyond speech, beyond knowledge.

6 The evidence of Christ has been clearly verified in your lives.

7 Just think - you don't need a thing, you've got it all! All God's gifts are right in front of you as you wait expectantly for our Master Jesus to arrive on the scene for the Finale.

8 And not only that, but God himself is right alongside to keep you steady and on track until things are all wrapped up by Jesus.

9 God, who got you started in this spiritual adventure, shares with us the life of his Son and our Master Jesus. He will never give up on you. Never forget that. The Cross: The Irony of God's Wisdom

10 I have a serious concern to bring up with you, my friends, using the authority of Jesus, our Master. I'll put it as urgently as I can: You must get along with each other. You must learn to be considerate of one another, cultivating a life in common.

11 I bring this up because some from Chloe's family brought a most disturbing report to my attention - that you're fighting among yourselves!

12 I'll tell you exactly what I was told: You're all picking sides, going around saying, "I'm on Paul's side," or "I'm for Apollos," or "Peter is my man," or "I'm in the Messiah group."

13 I ask you, "Has the Messiah been chopped up in little pieces so we can each have a relic all our own? Was Paul crucified for you? Was a single one of you baptized in Paul's name?"

14 I was not involved with any of your baptisms - except for Crispus and Gaius - and on getting this report, I'm sure glad I wasn't.

15 At least no one can go around saying he was baptized in my name.

16 (Come to think of it, I also baptized Stephanas's family, but as far as I can recall, that's it.)

17 God didn't send me out to collect a following for myself, but to preach the Message of what he has done, collecting a following for him. And he didn't send me to do it with a lot of fancy rhetoric of my own, lest the powerful action at the center - Christ on the Cross - be trivialized into mere words.

18 The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out.

19 It's written, I'll turn conventional wisdom on its head, I'll expose so-called experts as crackpots.

20 So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn't God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense?

21 Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered dumb - preaching, of all things! - to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.

22 While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom,

23 we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle - and Greeks pass it off as absurd.

24 But to us who are personally called by God himself - both Jews and Greeks - Christ is God's ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one.

25 Human wisdom is so tinny, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can't begin to compete with God's "weakness."

26 Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don't see many of "the brightest and the best" among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families.

27 Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses,

28 chose these "nobodies" to expose the hollow pretensions of the "somebodies"?

29 That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God.

30 Everything that we have - right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start - comes from God by way of Jesus Christ.

31 That's why we have the saying, "If you're going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God."

New Living Translation 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.

7 Now 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.

26 Remember, 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.

30 God 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 .”