Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks

Proclaiming Christ Crucified

2 When I came to you, brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony^[a] of God in lofty words or wisdom. ² For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. ³ And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling; ⁴ and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, ⁵ that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

The True Wisdom of God

⁶ Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. ⁷ But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification. ⁸ None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. ⁹ But, as it is written,

¹⁰ God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. ¹¹ For what person knows a man’s thoughts except the spirit of the man which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. ¹² Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. ¹³ And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who possess the Spirit.^[b]

¹⁴ The unspiritual^[c] man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. ¹⁵ The spiritual man judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. ¹⁶ “For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

On Divisions in the Corinthian Church

3 But I, brethren, could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh, as babes in Christ. ² I fed you with milk, not solid food; for you were not ready for it; and even yet you are not ready, ³ for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving like ordinary men? ⁴ For when one says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apol′los,” are you not merely men?

⁵ What then is Apol′los? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. ⁶ I planted, Apol′los watered, but God gave the growth. ⁷ So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. ⁸ He who plants and he who waters are equal, and each shall receive his wages according to his labor. ⁹ For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.

¹⁰ According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and another man is building upon it. Let each man take care how he builds upon it. ¹¹ For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. ¹² Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— ¹³ each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. ¹⁴ If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. ¹⁵ If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

¹⁶ Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? ¹⁷ If any one destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are.

¹⁸ Let no one deceive himself. If any one among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. ¹⁹ For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” ²⁰ and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.” ²¹ So let no one boast of men. For all things are yours, ²² whether Paul or Apol′los or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours; ²³ and you are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.