Beginning

Paul says ‘Hello’

1 This letter is from me, Paul. God chose me to be an apostle of Christ Jesus. That is what he wanted. Our Christian friend Sosthenes is with me here as I write to you.

² I am sending this letter to you, the people of God's church in Corinth. God has made you clean because you belong to Christ Jesus. He has chosen you to be his special people. So you join together with all people everywhere who worship our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is their Lord, as he is our Lord.

³ I pray that God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, will continue to help you. I pray that they will give you peace in your minds.

Paul thanks God

⁴ I always thank God because of you. I thank him because he has been very kind to you. He has helped you like that because you belong to Christ Jesus. ⁵ As a result, God has given you all the things that you need. You are able to speak everything that he wants you to speak. You are able to understand everything that he wants you to know. ⁶ In that way, God has shown you that the message we told you about Christ is true. ⁷ As a result, God has given you every spiritual gift that you need. God has blessed you with those gifts as you wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to return. ⁸ God will also keep you safe and strong until the end. Then, on the day when our Lord Jesus Christ returns, you will not be guilty of anything wrong. ⁹ God always does what he has promised to do. He has chosen you to be friends with his Son, Jesus Christ, who is our Lord.

Christians must not quarrel

¹⁰ My Christian friends, I tell you this with the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ: ‘Please agree with each other. Do not become separate groups. Be united and think about things in the same way.’

¹¹ Some people from Chloe's house have told me news about you. My friends, they say that you are quarrelling among yourselves. ¹² It happens like this: One of you says, ‘I belong to Paul's group.’ Another person says, ‘I belong to Apollos's group.’ Another person says, ‘I belong to Peter's group.’ And another person says, ‘I belong to Christ's group.’

¹³ You should not speak like that! It seems that you are breaking Christ into several parts. I, Paul, did not die on a cross to save you. When they baptized you, it was not on my behalf. ¹⁴ I thank God that I myself did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius. ¹⁵ So none of you can say, ‘I belong to Paul's group because he baptized me.’ ¹⁶ (Now I remember that I also baptized Stephanas and his family. I cannot remember that I baptized anyone else.) ¹⁷ Christ did not send me to baptize people. But he did send me to tell God's good news to people. When I speak his message, I do not use clever words. It is Christ's death on the cross that has power to save people. I do not want to spoil that power with clever words.

Christ's death on the cross

¹⁸ Some people think that the message about Christ's death on the cross is silly. Those people are destroying themselves. But it is different for us, the people that God is saving. The message about the cross shows us God's power to save us.

¹⁹ It says in the Bible:

²⁰ So the wise people in this world are not really important. The clever teachers of God's Law are not really important. People who know how to argue well are not really important. God has shown that the wise ideas that belong to this world have no value.

²¹ God himself is wise. He has decided that people cannot know him just because they are wise in their own way. Instead, God uses the message about Jesus to save people. That message may seem to be silly to some people. But when we tell it to people, God saves them if they believe it.

²² Jewish people want to see God do a miracle. Then they will listen. Gentile people want to listen to a message that has clever ideas. ²³ But as for us, we tell people about how Christ died on a cross. That is a message that Jewish people refuse to accept as true. Gentile people think that it is a silly message. ²⁴ But it is different for us whom God has called to come to him. Some of us are Jews, and some of us are Gentiles. For us, Christ shows God's great power. He shows how wise God is. ²⁵ Christ's death on a cross may seem a silly thing for God to do. But really it shows that God is very wise. He is wiser than people with their clever ideas. Christ's death on a cross may seem to show that God is weak. But really he is stronger than any human power.

²⁶ Christian friends, remember the time when God called you to come to him. Think about what you were like. Not many of you were clever or powerful in the way that people think is good. Not many of you belonged to important families. ²⁷ Instead, God chose to use things that people think are silly. He did this so that clever people would be ashamed. Yes, God chose to use things that people think are weak. He did this so that powerful people would be ashamed. ²⁸ God chose to use things that people think are useless. People who belong to this world do not like those things. They think that they have no value. God did this so that the things that seem important would become unimportant.

²⁹ Because of all this, nobody can be proud of themselves in front of God. ³⁰ It is because of God's work that you now belong to Christ Jesus. As a result of Christ's death on the cross, we share in God's wise plan. Because we belong to Christ, God makes us right with himself. He makes us his own special people. He makes us free from the power of sin.

³¹ Remember what is written in the Bible:

How Paul taught God's message

2 Christian friends, I came to tell you God's true message. I did not use clever words when I spoke to you. I did not try to make you think that I was very wise. ² While I was with you, I decided to teach you only about Jesus Christ. I taught you about his death on a cross. I wanted to forget everything else.

³ I lived among you as someone who felt weak. I was very afraid. ⁴ When I spoke to you and when I taught you God's message, I did not use clever words. I did not want you to believe me because you thought I was wise. Instead, it was the power of God's Holy Spirit that showed you that my message was true. ⁵ As a result, you now believe because of God's power. You do not believe because of human ideas.

⁶ But we do speak about wise thoughts to those of you who know Christ very well. But those wise thoughts do not belong to this world. They are not the ideas that the rulers of this world think are important. Those rulers will not be powerful for long. ⁷ No, the wise thoughts that we speak about belong to God. He has hidden them from people until now. But before God made the world, he decided to let us know these secrets. He wanted us to enjoy his glory. ⁸ None of the rulers of this world understood God's wise plan. If they had understood, they would not have killed Jesus on a cross. He is the Lord who rules heaven and earth. ⁹ This is written in the Bible:

¹⁰ But God has sent his Spirit to show these secrets to us. God's Spirit looks carefully into everything. He even knows God's secret thoughts. ¹¹ Only a person's own spirit can know everything that is in his thoughts. And it is the same with God. Only God's Spirit knows everything that is in God's thoughts. ¹² We have received God's own Spirit, not a spirit that belongs to this world. As a result, we can understand all the good things that God has given to us. ¹³ Those are the things that we speak about. We do not use clever words to speak about human ideas. Instead, we speak the message that God's Spirit has taught us. In that way, we explain a spiritual message to people who have God's Spirit.

¹⁴ If someone does not believe in God, they cannot accept the message that comes from God's Spirit. They think that God's message is silly. They cannot even understand those things. Only God's Spirit can explain them to people. ¹⁵ But we have God's Spirit with us. So we can understand the true value of all things. But other people cannot truly understand us, who belong to God. ¹⁶ As it says in the Bible:

God wants his people to grow as believers

3 My Christian friends, I could not teach you as I would teach people who have God's Spirit. I had to teach you as people who belong only to this world. You were like little children who could not understand the message about Christ very well. ² I had to teach you things that were easy to understand, like a mother gives milk to a baby. You were not yet ready to receive proper food. And you are still not ready to receive God's complete message! ³ You still do what your human nature wants to do. You are jealous of each other, and you quarrel with each other. Yes! This shows that you do what your human nature wants to do. You live like people who do not know God. ⁴ Some of you say, ‘Paul is my leader.’ And other people say, ‘Apollos is my leader.’ When you speak like that, you are talking like people who belong to this world.

⁵ Is Apollos important? Is Paul important? No! We are God's servants. We told you God's good news and you believed it. Each of us is doing the job which the Lord has given to us. ⁶ When I told you God's good news, I was like someone who planted seeds. Then Apollos was like someone who gave water to the young plants. But it was God who caused everything to grow. ⁷ The person who plants the seeds is not important. The person who gives water to the plants is not important. The important person is God, because he causes everything to grow. ⁸ The person who plants and the person who gives water both have the same purpose. God will pay each person what is right for their work. ⁹ Apollos and I work together as God's servants. You are like God's field that we work in.

You are also like a building that belongs to God. ¹⁰ I am like a good builder. God has given that job to me and he has helped me to do it well. I was the person who built the foundation. Now other people are building on that foundation.^[e] But each person must be careful how he builds. ¹¹ God has already put Jesus Christ as the only foundation of this building. So nobody can put any other foundation there.

¹² People may build on this foundation with gold, silver or valuable stones. Or they may build on it with wood, dry grass or leaves. ¹³ One day, God will show clearly how good each builder's work is. God will put each person's work into a fire on that great day.^[f] The fire will show whether their work is good or bad. ¹⁴ If the fire does not destroy the work, then that builder will receive good things from God. ¹⁵ But if the fire destroys a builder's work, that person will lose everything. The person himself will be safe. But he will be like someone who has run through the fire to a safe place.

¹⁶ You surely know that you are like God's special house. As God's people, God's Spirit lives in you. ¹⁷ If anyone destroys God's special house, then God will destroy that person. And you are like that house. You belong to God in a special way.

¹⁸ Be careful! Do not think that you are better than you really are. Maybe you think that you are wise, like people today want to be wise. But if you want to become truly wise, be ready for other people to think that you are a fool. ¹⁹ People in this world think that some people are wise. But God thinks that those wise people are fools. It says in the Bible:

²¹ Because of that, you should not be proud of any human leader. All leaders are there to serve you, as God's people. ²² Do not be proud of Paul, Apollos or Peter. We belong to you. All of this world, and life and death belong to you. The things of today and tomorrow belong to you. Everything belongs to you, ²³ you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

Church leaders

4 This is how you should think about us, who are leaders in the church. We are Christ's servants. God has also given a special job to us. We must explain his message to people so that they understand it. ² Anyone who has that kind of job must do what his master wants. That is the important thing.

³ So what you think about me does not matter to me. What you decide, or what any human authority decides, is not important. I do not even try to decide about myself. ⁴ I am sure in my own mind that I have not done anything wrong. But that does not make me right. Only the Lord himself can judge me. ⁵ So you should not decide about things before the time is right. Wait until the Lord comes again. He will show everything clearly. He will show the bad things that people have done secretly. He will show the secret purpose of people's thoughts. Then God will praise each person in a way that is right for them.

⁶ My Christian friends, I want to help you to understand these things. That is why I have used Apollos and myself as examples. You should learn from us what this means: ‘Obey what is written in the Bible.’ None of you should be proud of one leader and not respect another leader. ⁷ Do not think that any of you are better than anyone else. You received from God everything that you have. So you have no reason to be proud of what you have. It is all a gift!

⁸ You already have everything that you need, do you? You think that you are very rich already! You are ready to rule as kings. You no longer need us to help you. I think it would be good if you had really become kings. Then we could also rule together with you! ⁹ This is what I think: as apostles, God has put us last of everyone. People see us like we are prisoners at the end of the line. They are taking us to die in a public place. Everybody in the world has come to look at us, both people and angels.

¹⁰ We have become like fools so that we can serve Christ. But you think that you are wise because you belong to Christ. We seem like weak people, but you seem to be strong! People respect you but they insult us!

¹¹ Until now, we continue to be hungry and thirsty. Our clothes have become old. Sometimes people hit us for no reason. We do not have our own homes. ¹² We work hard, so that we become very tired. When people insult us, we ask God to bless them. When people give us trouble, we are patient and brave. ¹³ When people say bad things against us, we answer with kind words. We have become like dirty things that people throw away. That is still true, even today.

¹⁴ I do not write these things to make you ashamed. You are like my own children that I love. So I want to teach you what is right. ¹⁵ When I told the good news about Jesus Christ to you, I became like a father for you. You may have ten thousand teachers to help you understand the message about Christ. But I am the only person who is like a father for you. ¹⁶ That is why I want you to copy my example. ¹⁷ To help you to do that, I have sent Timothy to visit you. He is like a son to me, and I love him very much. He continues to serve the Lord well. He will help you to remember how I live as a Christian. I teach the same things to all groups of Christians everywhere.

¹⁸ Some people among you have become proud. They think that I will never come back to warn them. ¹⁹ But I will come to visit you again soon, if the Lord wants me to. Then I will find out what these proud people are really like. It is not just the words that they say. I will find out if they have the power of God. ²⁰ When people serve God as their king, they have God's power. They do not just speak proud words. ²¹ I will come and I will find out what is really true. So you must choose. Will I need to be angry and punish you? Or will I speak kind words to show that I love you? Which do you want me to do?