1 Corinthians 1
1
1-2I, Paul, have been called and sent by Jesus, the Messiah, according to God’s plan, along with my friend Sosthenes. I send this letter to you in God’s church at Corinth, believers cleaned up by Jesus and set apart for a God-filled life. I include in my greeting all who call out to Jesus, wherever they live. He’s their Master as well as ours!
3May all the gifts and benefits that come from God our Father, and the Master, Jesus Christ, be yours.
4-6Every time I think of you—and I think of you often!—I thank God for your lives of free and open access to God, given by Jesus. There’s no end to what has happened in you—it’s beyond speech, beyond knowledge. The evidence of Christ has been clearly verified in your lives.
7-9Just think—you don’t need a thing, you’ve got it all! All God’s gifts are right in front of you as you wait expectantly for our Master Jesus to arrive on the scene for the Finale. And not only that, but God himself is right alongside to keep you steady and on track until things are all wrapped up by Jesus. God, who got you started in this spiritual adventure, shares with us the life of his Son and our Master Jesus. He will never give up on you. Never forget that.
The Cross: The Irony of God’s Wisdom
10I have a serious concern to bring up with you, my friends, using the authority of Jesus, our Master. I’ll put it as urgently as I can: You must get along with each other. You must learn to be considerate of one another, cultivating a life in common.
11-12I bring this up because some from Chloe’s family brought a most disturbing report to my attention—that you’re fighting among yourselves! I’ll tell you exactly what I was told: You’re all picking sides, going around saying, “I’m on Paul’s side,” or “I’m for Apollos,” or “Peter is my man,” or “I’m in the Messiah group.”
13-16I ask you, “Has the Messiah been chopped up in little pieces so we can each have a relic all our own? Was Paul crucified for you? Was a single one of you baptized in Paul’s name?” I was not involved with any of your baptisms—except for Crispus and Gaius—and on getting this report, I’m sure glad I wasn’t. At least no one can go around saying he was baptized in my name. (Come to think of it, I also baptized Stephanas’s family, but as far as I can recall, that’s it.)
17God didn’t send me out to collect a following for myself, but to preach the Message of what he has done, collecting a following for him. And he didn’t send me to do it with a lot of fancy rhetoric of my own, lest the powerful action at the center—Christ on the Cross—be trivialized into mere words.
18-21The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. It’s written,
I’ll turn conventional wisdom on its head,
I’ll expose so-called experts as shams.
So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn’t God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense? Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered stupid—preaching, of all things!—to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.
22-25While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle—and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But to us who are personally called by God himself—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God’s ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one. Human wisdom is so cheap, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can’t begin to compete with God’s “weakness.”
26-31Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.”
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1 Corinthians 1: MSG
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
1 Corinthians 1
1
1From Sha'ul, given the kri'ah (call) of Hashem and summoned to be a Shliach of Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach birtzon Hashem; and from Sosthenes#1:1 Ac 18:17 the Ach b'Moshiach.
2To the Kehillah (congregation) of Hashem existing in Corinth, to the ones having been set apart unto kedushah (holiness) in Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, given the kri'ah to be Kedoshim, with all the ones who in every place call on the name of Adoneinu, theirs and ours, Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach Yehoshua.
3Chen v'Chesed Hashem and Shalom from Elohim Avinu and Adoneinu Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach Yehoshua.
4Modeh Ani (I give thanks) to my G-d always concerning you for the Chen v'Chesed Hashem having been given to you in Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach Yehoshua,
5That in everything you were enriched in Moshiach in all expression and kol da'as (all knowledge),
6Even as the edut (testimony) of Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach was confirmed in you,
7So that you are not lacking in any matnat Elohim, awaiting the hisgalus (revelation) of Adoneinu Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach Yehoshua,
8Who also with chizzuk (strengthening) will confirm you ad es Ketz (until the time of the End),#1:8 Dan 11:35 unreprovable in the Yom Hashem, the Yom Adoneinu, Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach Yehoshua.#1:8 Am 5:18
9Ne'eman (faithful) is Hashem through whom you were called into the chavurah (company, fellowship, society) of His Zun fun der Oybershter Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach Yehoshua Adoneinu.
10Now I exhort you, Achim b'Moshiach, b'Shem Adoneinu Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach Yehoshua, that you all speak the same thing and that there not be among you machlokot (divisions of dissension),#1:10 Ro 11:18 but that you may have achdus (unity) in the same mind and in the same way of thinking.
11For it was made clear to me about you, Achim b'Moshiach of mine, by the ones of Chloe, that there is merivah (strife) among you.
12Now I say this, because each of you says, “I am of Sha'ul,” or, “I am of Apollos,” or “I am of Kefa,” or “I am of Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach!”
13Has Moshiach been divided? Surely Sha'ul was not for you the one talui al HaEtz (being hanged on the Tree)?#1:13 Dt 21:23 Surely it was not in the name of Sha'ul that the Moshiachʼs tevilah in the mikveh mayim was given to you?
14Modeh Ani Hashem that to not one of you I gave Moshiachʼs tevilah, except Crispus and Gaius,#1:14 Ro 16:23
15Lest anyone should say that in my name you were given the Moshiachʼs tevilah.
16Now I gave Moshiachʼs tevilah also to Stephanasʼ household; as to the rest, I do not know if I gave Moshiachʼs tevilah to anyone else.
17For Moshiach did not send me to give Moshiachʼs tevilah in the mikveh mayim, but to preach the Besuras HaGeulah, not by means of the lomdes (cleverness, erudition) of the rhetoric of Bnei Adam, lest the gevurah (power) of HaEtz HaKelalat Hashem (the Tree of the Curse of G-d)#1:17 Dt 21:23 of Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach be buttel (cancelled out).
18For the darshenen of HaEtz HaKelalat Hashem (the Tree of the Curse of G-d)#1:18 Dt 21:23 is narrishkait to the ones perishing. But to us who are being delivered in Yeshu'at Eloheinu, it is the gevurat Hashem (the power of G-d).
19For it has been written, I will destroy CHOCHMAT CHACHAMAV (the wisdom of the wise ones) U'VINAT NEVONAV (and the intelligence of the intelligent) I will set aside.#1:19 Isa 29:14
20Where is the chacham (wise man)? Where is the sofer (scribe) of the yeshiva, where is the talmid chacham? Where is the philosophical debater of the Olam Hazeh? Did not Hashem make the so-called chochmah (wisdom) of the Olam Hazeh to look like narrishkait?#1:20 Isa 19:11,12; Job 12:17; Isa 44:25; Jer 8:9
21For, als (since) — and this was by the chochmah of Hashem — the Olam Hazeh did not by its chochmah have da'as of Hashem, G-d was pleased through the “sichlut” (foolishness) of the Hachrazah (Proclamation, Kerygma, Preaching) of the Besuras HaGeulah to save the ma'aminim (believers).
22Yehudim ask for otot (signs)#1:22 Ex 7:3 and Yevanim (Greeks) seek chochmah,
23But, we proclaim Moshiach and nivlato al haEtz (his body on the Tree):#1:23 Dt 21:23 to Jews, a michshol;#1:23 Isa 8:14 to Goyim, narrishkait (foolishness).
24Yet, to those whom Hashem has given the kri'ah#1:24 1C 1:1-2 and summoned, to HaKeru'im (to the Called Ones), both to Yehudim and to Yevanim Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, the Gevurat Hashem and the Chochmat Hashem.
25For the so-called “sichlut” (foolishness) of Hashem has more chochmah than Bnei Adam, and the “weakness” of G-d has more koach (power) than Bnei Adam.#1:25 1C 1:18
26For you see your kri'ah (call), Achim b'Moshiach, what you were, that not many of you were chachamim (wise ones) by the standards of Bnei Adam, not many ba'alei hashpa'ah (people of influence), not many ba'alei zchus (privileged).
27But Hashem in His bechirah (selection) chose the things of sichlut (foolishness), that He might bring the chachamim to bushah (shame); and Hashem in His bechirah (selection) chose the things of weakness that He might bring the strong to bushah (shame).
28And those of the Olam Hazeh without mishpochah atzilah (noble birth) and those which are hanivzim#1:28 Isa 53:3 (the despised) Hashem chose, choosing the things that are not, in order to bring to naught the things that are.
29His tachlis (purpose) is that no basar (fallen humanity sold under the power of slave master Chet Kadmon, Original Sin)#1:29 Ro 7:14 may boast before Hashem.
30But you are of Hashem in Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach Yehoshua who became to us chochmah (wisdom) from Hashem, our Tzidkanut (Righteousness) and our Kedushah (Holiness) and our Geulah LaOlam (Redemption to the world),#1:30 Jer 23:5,6; 33:16
31Al menat (in order that), as it has been written, YITHALLEL HAMITHALLEL B'HASHEM#1:31 Jer 9:23 (The one boasting let him boast in the L-rd).#1:31 Ps 34:2; 44:8
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