Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks

The powerful message of the cross

2 This is how it was for me, too, my dear family. When I came to you, I didn’t come and proclaim God’s mystery to you by means of a superior style of speaking or wisdom. ² No: I decided to know nothing in my dealings with you except Jesus the Messiah, especially his crucifixion. ³ I came to you in weakness, in great fear and trembling. ⁴ My speech and my proclamation were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in transparent proof brought home powerfully by the spirit, ⁵ so that your faith might not be in human wisdom but in God’s power.

God’s strange wisdom

⁶ We do, however, speak wisdom among the mature. But this isn’t a wisdom of this present world, or of the rulers of this present world—those same rulers who are being done away with. ⁷ No: we speak God’s hidden wisdom in a mystery. This is the wisdom God prepared ahead of time, before the world began, for our glory.

⁸ None of the rulers of this present age knew about this wisdom. If they had, you see, they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory. ⁹ But, as the Bible says,

¹⁰ —and that’s what God has revealed to us through the spirit! The spirit, you see, searches everything, yes, even the depths of God. ¹¹ Think of it this way: who knows what is really going on inside a person, except the spirit of the person which is inside them? Well, it’s like that with God. Nobody knows what is going on inside God except God’s spirit. ¹² And we haven’t received the spirit of the world, but the spirit that comes from God, so that we can know the things that have been given to us by God.

¹³ That, then, is what we speak. We don’t use words we’ve been taught by human wisdom, but words we’ve been taught by the spirit, interpreting spiritual things to spiritual people.

Spiritual or merely human?

¹⁴ Someone living at the merely human level doesn’t accept the things of God’s spirit. They are foolishness to such people, you see, and they can’t understand them because they need to be discerned spiritually. ¹⁵ But spiritual people discern everything, while nobody else can discern the truth about them! ¹⁶ For “Who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of the Messiah.

3 In my own case, my dear family, I couldn’t speak to you as spiritual people, but as people who were all too obviously merely human, little babies in the Messiah. ² I fed you with milk, not solid food, because you weren’t able to take it—and you still can’t, even now! ³ You’re still determined to live in the old way! Yes, wherever there is jealousy and quarrelling, doesn’t that mean you’re living in the old way, behaving as any merely human being might do? ⁴ When someone says “I’m with Paul!” and someone else says “I’m with Apollos!” are you not mere humans?

God’s farm, God’s building

⁵ So what d’you suppose Apollos actually is? What d’you think Paul is? I’ll tell you: servants, through whom you came to faith, each one as the Lord gave. ⁶ I planted and Apollos watered, but it was God who gave the growth. ⁷ It follows that the person who plants isn’t anything special, and the person who waters isn’t anything special; what matters is God who gives the growth. ⁸ The person who plants and the person who waters are just the same, and each will receive his own reward according to his own work. ⁹ We are God’s fellow workers, you see: you are God’s farm, God’s building.

¹⁰ According to God’s grace, I laid the foundation like a wise master builder, and someone else is building on it. Everyone should take care how they build on it. ¹¹ Nobody can lay any foundation, you see, except the one which is laid, which is Jesus the Messiah!

The coming day, the coming fire

¹² If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, grass or straw— ¹³ well, everyone’s work will become visible, because the Day will show it up, since it will be revealed in fire. Then the fire will test what sort of work everyone has done. ¹⁴ If the building work that someone has done stands the test, they will receive a reward. ¹⁵ If someone’s work is burned up, they will be punished by bearing the loss; they themselves will be saved, however, but only as though through a fire.

¹⁶ Don’t you see? You are God’s Temple! God’s spirit lives in you! ¹⁷ If anyone destroys God’s Temple, God will destroy them. God’s Temple is holy, you see, and that is precisely what you are.

Everything belongs to you

¹⁸ Don’t let anyone deceive themselves. If anyone among you supposes they are wise in the present age, let them become foolish, so that they can become wise. ¹⁹ The wisdom of this world, you see, is folly with God. This is what the Bible says: “He catches the wise in their trickery.” ²⁰ And again, “The Lord knows the thinking of the wise—and he knows that it’s all a sham!”

²¹ So don’t let anyone boast about mere human beings. For everything belongs to you, ²² whether it’s Paul or Apollos or Cephas, whether it’s the world or life or death, whether it’s the present or the future—everything belongs to you! ²³ And you belong to the Messiah; and the Messiah belongs to God.