Parallel Bible results for "1 corinthians 1:16-29"

1 Corinthians 1:16-29

The Message Bible MSG

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.

New International Version NIV

16 (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.)

17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

19 For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

20 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.

22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom,

23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,

24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.

27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are,

29 so that no one may boast before him.