I Corinthians Chapter 1

This letter specifically addresses the problems that the Corinthian cruch was facing: dissension, immorality, problems with the form of public worship and confusion about the gifts of the Spirit.

A Conservative Version

1 : 1 Paul, a called apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes the brother,

1 : 2 to the congregation of God that is at Corinth, to called men, to holy men who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus with all in every place who call upon the name of our the Lord Jesus Christ-both ours and theirs.

1 : 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

1 : 4 I thank my God always about you, for the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus,

1 : 5 that in everything ye were enriched in him, in all speech and in all knowledge.

1 : 6 Just as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you,

1 : 7 so that ye come behind in not one gift, waiting for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ,

1 : 8 who will also confirm you until the end, irreproachable in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 : 9 God is faithful through whom ye were called for the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

1 : 10 Now I beseech you, brothers, through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and there be no divisions among you, but ye may be thoroughly prepared in the same mind and in the same understanding.

1 : 11 For it was declared to me about you, my brothers, by those of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.

1 : 12 Now I say this. That each of you actually say, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ.

1 : 13 Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you, or were ye immersed in the name of Paul?

1 : 14 I thank God that I immersed none of you except Crispus and Gaius,

1 : 15 lest some man should say that I immersed in my name.

1 : 16 And I also immersed the household of Stephanas. Besides, I know not whether I immersed any other.

1 : 17 For Christ sent me not to immerse, but to preach the good news, not in wisdom of speech lest the cross of Christ would be emptied.

1 : 18 For the message of the cross is of course foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is a power of God.

1 : 19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will frustrate the understanding of those of understanding.

1 : 20 Where is a wise man? Where is a scholar? Where is a researcher of this age? Did not God make foolish the wisdom of this world?

1 : 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through its wisdom, it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe.

1 : 22 And because Jews demand a sign and Greeks search for wisdom,

1 : 23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, it is truly to Jews a stumbling-block and to Gentiles foolishness.

1 : 24 But to them, to the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

1 : 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weak thing of God is stronger than men.

1 : 26 For notice your calling, brothers, that not many are wise according to flesh, not many powerful, not many eminent.

1 : 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world, so that he might humiliate the wise, and God chose the weak things of the world, so that he might humiliate the powerful.

1 : 28 And God chose the common things of the world, and the disdained things, and the things that are not, so that he might make useless the things that are,

1 : 29 so that no flesh may boast before God.

1 : 30 But ye are his, in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption,

1 : 31 so that, just as it is written, He who boasts, let him boast in the Lord.