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1 Corinthians 1
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Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will
of God, and our brother Sosthenes,
to the assembly of God which is at Corinth; those who are
sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who
call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, both
theirs and ours:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ.
I always thank my God concerning you, for the grace of God which
was given you in Christ Jesus;
that in everything you were enriched in him, in all speech and
all knowledge;
even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you:
so that you come behind in no gift; waiting for the revelation
of our Lord Jesus Christ;
who will also confirm you until the end, blameless in the day of
our Lord Jesus Christ.
God is faithful, through whom you were called into the
fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Now I beg you, brothers, through the name of
our Lord, Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing and
that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfected
together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
For it has been reported to me concerning you, my brothers, by
those who are from Chloe’s household, that there are contentions
among you.
Now I mean this, that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” “I
follow Apollos,” “I follow Cephas,” and, “I follow Christ.”
Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you
baptized into the name of Paul?
I thank God that I baptized none of you, except Crispus and
Gaius,
so that no one should say that I had baptized you into my own
name.
(I also baptized the household of Stephanas; besides them, I
don’t know whether I baptized any other.)
For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Good
News—not in wisdom of words, so that the cross of Christ
wouldn’t be made void.
For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are dying,
but to us who are saved it is the power of God.
For it is written,
- “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
- I will bring the discernment of the discerning to
nothing.”*
Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the lawyer of
this world? Hasn’t God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
For seeing that in the wisdom of God, the world through its
wisdom didn’t know God, it was God’s good pleasure through the
foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe.
For Jews ask for signs, Greeks seek after wisdom,
but we preach Christ crucified; a stumbling block to Jews, and
foolishness to Greeks,
but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the
power of God and the wisdom of God.
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the
weakness of God is stronger than men.
For you see your calling, brothers, that not many are wise
according to the flesh, not many mighty, and not many noble;
but God chose the foolish things of the world that he might put
to shame those who are wise. God chose the weak things of the
world, that he might put to shame the things that are strong;
and God chose the lowly things of the world, and the things that
are despised, and the things that are not, that he might bring
to nothing the things that are:
that no flesh should boast before God.
But of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who was made to us wisdom
from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption:
that, according as it is written, “He who boasts, let him boast
in the Lord.”*
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1:10 The word for
“brothers” here and where context allows may also be correctly
translated “brothers and sisters” or “siblings.”
1:19 Isaiah 29:14
1:31 Jeremiah 9:24
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1 Corinthians 2 |
When I came to you, brothers, I didn’t come with excellence of
speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.
For I determined not to know anything among you, except Jesus
Christ, and him crucified.
I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling.
My speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of human
wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
that your faith wouldn’t stand in the wisdom of men, but in the
power of God.
We speak wisdom, however, among those who are full grown; yet a
wisdom not of this world, nor of the rulers of this world, who
are coming to nothing.
But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom that has been
hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds for our glory,
which none of the rulers of this world has known. For had they
known it, they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory.
But as it is written,
- “Things which an eye didn’t see, and an ear didn’t hear,
- which didn’t enter into the heart of man,
- these God has prepared for those who love him.”*
But to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit
searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
For who among men knows the things of a man, except the spirit
of the man, which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of
God, except God’s Spirit.
But we received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit
which is from God, that we might know the things that were
freely given to us by God.
Which things also we speak, not in words which man’s wisdom
teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual
things with spiritual things.
Now the natural man doesn’t receive the things of God’s Spirit,
for they are foolishness to him, and he can’t know them, because
they are spiritually discerned.
But he who is spiritual discerns all things, and he himself is
judged by no one.
“For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct
him?”*
But we have Christ’s mind.
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2:9 Isaiah 64:4
2:16 Isaiah 40:13
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1 Corinthians 3 |
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Brothers, I couldn’t speak to you as to spiritual, but as to
fleshly, as to babies in Christ.
I fed you with milk, not with meat; for you weren’t yet ready.
Indeed, not even now are you ready,
for you are still fleshly. For insofar as there is jealousy,
strife, and factions among you, aren’t you fleshly, and don’t
you walk in the ways of men?
For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow
Apollos,” aren’t you fleshly?
Who then is Apollos, and who is Paul, but servants through whom
you believed; and each as the Lord gave to him?
I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase.
So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters,
but God who gives the increase.
Now he who plants and he who waters are the same, but each will
receive his own reward according to his own labor.
For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s farming, God’s
building.
According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise
master builder I laid a foundation, and another builds on it.
But let each man be careful how he builds on it.
For no one can lay any other foundation than that which has been
laid, which is Jesus Christ.
But if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly
stones, wood, hay, or stubble;
each man’s work will be revealed. For the Day will declare it,
because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself will test
what sort of work each man’s work is.
If any man’s work remains which he built on it, he will receive
a reward.
If any man’s work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself
will be saved, but as through fire.
Don’t you know that you are a temple of God, and that God’s
Spirit lives in you?
If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him; for
God’s temple is holy, which you are.
Let no one deceive himself. If anyone thinks that he is wise
among you in this world, let him become a fool, that he may
become wise.
For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is
written, “He has taken the wise in their craftiness.”*
And again, “The Lord knows the reasoning of the wise, that it is
worthless.”*
Therefore let no one boast in men. For all things are yours,
whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or
death, or things present, or things to come. All are yours,
and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.
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3:19 Job 5:13
3:20 Psalm 94:11
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1 Corinthians 4 |
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So let a man think of us as Christ’s servants, and stewards of
God’s mysteries.
Here, moreover, it is required of stewards, that they be found
faithful.
But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by
you, or by man’s judgment. Yes, I don’t judge my own self.
For I know nothing against myself. Yet I am not justified by
this, but he who judges me is the Lord.
Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes,
who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and
reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each man will get his
praise from God.
Now these things, brothers, I have in a figure transferred to
myself and Apollos for your sakes, that in us you might learn
not to think beyond the things which are written, that none of
you be puffed up against one another.
For who makes you different? And what do you have that you
didn’t receive? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as
if you had not received it?
You are already filled. You have already become rich. You have
come to reign without us. Yes, and I wish that you did reign,
that we also might reign with you.
For, I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last of
all, like men sentenced to death. For we are made a spectacle to
the world, both to angels and men.
We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We
are weak, but you are strong. You have honor, but we have
dishonor.
Even to this present hour we hunger, thirst, are naked, are
beaten, and have no certain dwelling place.
We toil, working with our own hands. When people curse us, we
bless. Being persecuted, we endure.
Being defamed, we entreat. We are made as the filth of the
world, the dirt wiped off by all, even until now.
I don’t write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as
my beloved children.
For though you have ten thousand tutors in Christ, yet not many
fathers. For in Christ Jesus, I became your father through the
Good News.
I beg you therefore, be imitators of me.
Because of this I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved
and faithful child in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways
which are in Christ, even as I teach everywhere in every
assembly.
Now some are puffed up, as though I were not coming to you.
But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord is willing. And I
will know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but the
power.
For the Kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.
What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and
a spirit of gentleness?
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1 Corinthians 5 |
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It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among
you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the
Gentiles, that one has his father’s wife.
You are puffed up, and didn’t rather mourn, that he who had done
this deed might be removed from among you.
For I most certainly, as being absent in body but present in
spirit, have already, as though I were present, judged him who
has done this thing.
In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, you being gathered
together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus
Christ,
are to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the
flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord
Jesus.
Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast
leavens the whole lump?
Purge out the old yeast, that you may be a new lump, even as you
are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, has been
sacrificed in our place.
Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old yeast, neither
with the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened
bread of sincerity and truth.
I wrote to you in my letter to have no company with sexual
sinners;
yet not at all meaning with the sexual sinners of this world, or
with the covetous and extortioners, or with idolaters; for then
you would have to leave the world.
But as it is, I wrote to you not to associate with anyone who is
called a brother who is a sexual sinner, or covetous, or an
idolater, or a slanderer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner.
Don’t even eat with such a person.
For what have I to do with also judging those who are outside?
Don’t you judge those who are within?
But those who are outside, God judges. “Put away the wicked man
from among yourselves.”*
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5:13 Deuteronomy
17:7; 19:19; 21:21; 22:21; 24:7
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