1 Corinthians 1
1 Paul, called to be an Apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God--and our brother Sosthenes:
I, Paul, [am writing this letter]. Sosthenes, our fellow believer, is with [me as I write it]. [God] appointed me to be an apostle of Christ Jesus because that is what God desired.
2 To the Church of God in Corinth, men and women consecrated in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all in every place who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ-- their Lord as well as ours.
[I am sending this letter] to all you who are God’s believers in Corinth [city]. You have been set apart [by God] {[God] has set you apart} for himself because (of your close relationship with/you belong to) Christ Jesus. God has appointed you to be his people and to live in a morally pure way, just like he has appointed all the people everywhere who belong to him to live in a morally pure way. You and they have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ [MTY]. He is their sovereign Lord as well as the sovereign Lord of all of us [(inc)] who have trusted in him.
3 May grace and peace be granted to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
We [(exc)] desire that God, who is our [heavenly] Father, and Jesus Christ, who is our sovereign Lord, will continue to act kindly toward you and cause you to experience [inner] peace.
4 I thank my God continually on your behalf for the grace of God bestowed on you in Christ Jesus--
I very often [HYP] thank God for you because he has acted toward you kindly, acting in ways that you do not deserve. He has done this because of your (having a close relationship with/being united to) Christ Jesus.
5 that you have been so richly blessed in Him, with readiness of speech and fulness of knowledge.
That is, [God] has [HYP] helped you spiritually very much because of your (having a close relationship with/being united to) Christ. Specifically, God has very much [HYP] enabled you to speak messages [that his Spirit revealed to you], and he has very much enabled you to know many things [HYP] that his Spirit revealed to you.
6 Thus my testimony as to the Christ has been confirmed in your experience,
In that way, [he] confirmed to you that what we [(exc)] proclaimed about Christ is true.
7 so that there is no gift of God in which you consciously come short while patiently waiting for the reappearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,
As a result, while you wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to return, within your group you truly have [LIT] every ability that [God’s] Spirit gives [to believers].
8 who will also keep you stedfast to the very End, so that you will be free from reproach on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God will also cause you to steadfastly [trust Christ to the very end of your lives] [EUP]. The result will be that God will not consider you guilty [of any sin] when our Lord Jesus Christ returns to earth [MTY].
9 God is ever true to His promises, and it was by Him that you were, one and all, called into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ, our Lord.
You can depend on God to do that. He is the one who chose you to become intimately associated with his Son, Jesus Christ, who is our Lord.
10 Now I entreat you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to cultivate a spirit of harmony--all of you--and that there be no divisions among you, but rather a perfect union through your having one mind and one judgement.
My fellow believers, by the authority of [MTY] our Lord Jesus Christ, I urgently appeal to all of you to agree with one another. What I mean is, stop dividing into groups. Instead, be united [MET] concerning what you understand [about spiritual matters], and be united in what you decide.
11 For I have been distinctly informed, my brethren, about you by Chloe's people, that there are dissensions among you.
My fellow believers, [I urge this] because some members of Chloe’s household have told me that you are quarreling among yourselves.
12 What I mean is that each of you is a partisan. One man says "I belong to Paul;" another "I belong to Apollos;" a third "I belong to Peter;" a fourth "I belong to Christ."
That is, some of you say, “Paul is the one to whom we [are loyal],” and others say, “Peter is the one to whom we [are loyal],” and still others say, “Christ is the one to whom we [are loyal].”
13 Is the Christ in fragments? Is it Paul who was crucified on your behalf? Or were you baptized to be Paul's adherents?
[It is ridiculous that] [RHQ] [you are quarreling and] dividing up [into groups instead of being loyal to] Christ alone. Christ certainly has not divided himself into parts and distributed those parts out [to groups of people who oppose each other]! [MET, RHQ] I, Paul, certainly did not die on the cross for you! [RHQ] When you were baptized {When someone baptized you}, you certainly did not promise that you were submitting to me! [RHQ]
14 I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius--
I thank [God] that Crispus and Gaius were the only ones from among you whom I baptized.
15 for fear people should say that you were baptized to be my adherents.
As a result, no one [there in Corinth except those two] can say, “Paul baptized me so that I would become (his disciple/submissive to him).”
16 I did, however, baptize Stephanas' household also: but I do not think that I baptized any one else.
[Now I remember that] I also baptized the household of Stephanas, but I do not remember baptizing anyone else [there].
17 Christ did not send me to baptize, but to proclaim the Good News; and not in merely wise words--lest the Cross of Christ should be deprived of its power.
Christ sent me not [primarily] to baptize people but to preach the good message about him. When I do that, he does not want me to use words that human philosophers [consider] wise [IRO]. I do not want the message about [what] he [accomplished when he was nailed to] the cross [MTY] to lose its power.
18 For the Message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are on the way to perdition, but it is the power of God to those whom He is saving.
Those who are perishing spiritually [because they do not believe that message consider] that the message [about what Christ accomplished when he was nailed to the] cross [MTY] [is] foolish. But to us who are being saved {whom [God] is saving} [spiritually because we believe that message], it [demonstrates that] God acts powerfully [in order to save us].
19 For so it stands written, "I will exhibit the nothingness of the wisdom of the wise, and the intelligence of the intelligent I will bring to nought."
[It is like what God said that] a prophet wrote long ago, [By the things that I will do], I will show that the ideas of those who [think] [IRO] they are wise are completely useless. I will ignore the ideas that they think are [IRO] so smart.
20 Where is your wise man? Where your expounder of the Law? Where your investigator of the questions of this present age? Has not God shown the world's wisdom to be utter foolishness? (aiōn g165)
So, do you know [what God thinks] about what [RHQ] people who [IRO] consider themselves to be wise and scholars and philosophers say? [He does not pay attention to what they say, because] [RHQ] he has shown clearly that what unbelievers [think is] [IRO] wise is [not wise at all], but is really foolish. (aiōn g165)
21 For after the world by its wisdom--as God in His wisdom had ordained--had failed to gain the knowledge of God, God was pleased, by the apparent foolishness of the Message which we preach, to save those who accepted it.
God, acting very wisely, made it impossible for unbelievers to know God by doing what they thought was [IRO] wise. Instead, he was happy to save those who trust [in Christ] as the result of their hearing [the message that] was proclaimed to them, a message that others consider to be foolish.
22 Seeing that Jews demand miracles, and Greeks go in search of wisdom,
The Jews want [people to prove, by performing] miracles, [that their message is true]. The non-Jews want to hear only messages consisting of talk that they consider to be very wise.
23 while we proclaim a Christ who has been crucified--to the Jews a stumbling-block, to Gentiles foolishness,
As for us, we proclaim [the message about what] Christ [accomplished for us when] he was nailed {[when they] nailed him} to the cross. That message offends Jews [because they do not think that the Messiah will die, and] non-Jews think it is [IRO] a foolish message.
24 but to those who have received the Call, whether Jews or Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
But to us whom God has chosen to belong to himself, both Jews and non-Jews, that message shows that God acted powerfully and wisely [by sending] Christ [to die] for us.
25 Because that which the world deems foolish in God is wiser than men's wisdom, and that which it deems feeble in God is mightier than men's might.
[Unbelievers may think] [IRO] [that] God was [acting] foolishly [by doing that], but [the truth is that] he was acting more wisely than unbelievers who [just think that] [IRO] they are wise. And unbelievers may think that God was [acting] weakly [by sending his son to die], but he was acting more powerfully than unbelievers who [just think] [IRO] [that they] act powerfully.
26 For consider, brethren, God's call to you. Not many who are wise with merely human wisdom, not many of position and influence, not many of noble birth have been called.
My fellow believers, remember what [kind of people you] were when God chose you. [Not many of you] whom he chose are people whom [unbelievers considered to be] wise. Very few of you were considered to be important. Very few of you came from families with a high social standing.
27 But God has chosen the things which the world regards as foolish, in order to put its wise men to shame; and God has chosen the things which the world regards as destitute of influence, in order to put its powerful things to shame;
Instead, it was [usually] those whom [unbelievers considered to be] foolish whom God chose. He did that in order to shame/discredit those whom [unbelievers consider] [IRO] wise. It was [usually] those [whom unbelievers] considered [IRO] unimportant whom God chose, in order to shame/discredit those whom unbelievers consider important.
28 and the things which the world regards as base, and those which it sets utterly at nought--things that have no existence--God has chosen in order to reduce to nothing things that do exist;
It was usually those who are despised and considered {whom [unbelievers] despise and consider} worthless whom God chose, in order to make completely ineffective [what unbelievers consider to be important].
29 to prevent any mortal man from boasting in the presence of God.
[He did that] in order that no one could boast to God about being wise or important.
30 But you--and it is all God's doing--are in Christ Jesus: He has become for us a wisdom which is from God, consisting of righteousness and sanctification and deliverance;
It is because of what God [has done] that you (have a close relationship with/belong to) Christ Jesus. God [put into effect] his wise [plan to save us] by what Christ did for us. As a result of what Christ did, God erases the record of our sins, sets us apart for himself, and frees us from our being guilty [for our sins].
31 in order that it may be as Scripture says, "He who boasts--let his boast be in the Lord."
So, it is the Lord whom we should boast about, [not about one spiritual leader being better than another]. We should do as ([a prophet/Jeremiah]) wrote [in the Scriptures that we should do]: Those who boast should boast [only] about what the Lord [has done].
