Knox Bible

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Paul, whom the will of God has called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ, and Sosthenes, who is their brother,

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send greeting to the church of God at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, and called to be holy; with all those who invoke the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, in every dependency of theirs, and so of ours.✻

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Grace and peace be yours from God, who is our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

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I give thanks to my God continually in your name for that grace of God which has been bestowed upon you in Jesus Christ;

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that you have become rich, through him, in every way, in eloquence and in knowledge of every sort;

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so fully has the message of Christ established itself among you.

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And now there is no gift in which you are still lacking; you have only to look forward to the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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He will strengthen your resolution to the last, so that no charge will lie against you on the day when our Lord Jesus Christ comes.

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The God, who has called you into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful to his promise.

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Only I entreat you, brethren, as you love the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, use, all of you, the same language. There must be no divisions among you; you must be restored to unity of mind and purpose.

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The account I have of you, my brethren, from Chloe’s household, is that there are dissensions among you;

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each of you, I mean, has a cry of his own, I am for Paul, I am for Apollo, I am for Cephas, I am for Christ.

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What, has Christ been divided up? Was it Paul that was crucified for you? Was it in Paul’s name that you were baptized?

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Thank God I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius;

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so that no one can say it was in my name you were baptized.

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(Yes, and I did baptize the household of Stephanas; I do not know that I baptized anyone else.)

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Christ did not send me to baptize; he sent me to preach the gospel; not with an orator’s cleverness, for so the cross of Christ might be robbed of its force.✻

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To those who court their own ruin, the message of the cross is but folly; to us, who are on the way to salvation, it is the evidence of God’s power.

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So we read in scripture, I will confound the wisdom of wise men, disappoint the calculations of the prudent.✻

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What has become of the wise men, the scribes, the philosophers of this age we live in? Must we not say that God has turned our worldly wisdom to folly?

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When God shewed us his wisdom, the world, with all its wisdom, could not find its way to God;✻ and now God would use a foolish thing, our preaching, to save those who will believe in it.

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Here are the Jews asking for signs and wonders, here are the Greeks intent on their philosophy;

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but what we preach is Christ crucified; to the Jews, a discouragement, to the Gentiles, mere folly;

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but to us who have been called, Jew and Gentile alike, Christ the power of God, Christ the wisdom of God.

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So much wiser than men is God’s foolishness; so much stronger than men is God’s weakness.

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Consider, brethren, the circumstances of your own calling; not many of you are wise, in the world’s fashion, not many powerful, not many well born.

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No, God has chosen what the world holds foolish, so as to abash the wise, God has chosen what the world holds weak, so as to abash the strong.✻

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God has chosen what the world holds base and contemptible, nay, has chosen what is nothing, so as to bring to nothing what is now in being;

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no human creature was to have any ground for boasting, in the presence of God.

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It is from him that you take your origin, through Christ Jesus, whom God gave us to be all our wisdom, our justification, our sanctification, and our atonement;

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so that the scripture might be fulfilled, If anyone boasts, let him make his boast in the Lord.✻