The Early Church · c. AD 55
Chapter 17
To the Church in Corinth
For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are dying, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
For parents
This part of Paul’s letter speaks of sexual sin. In 1 Corinthians 5 a man among the believers is sleeping with his father’s wife, and Paul tells them to give him up to Satan and put him out from among them. In 6:12–20 he speaks of being joined to a prostitute and tells them to run from sexual sin. Both are told plainly and softly, and his list of those who will not inherit God’s Kingdom (6:9–11) is given exactly as the text has it, without comment.
wrote a letter to the believers in , and it began like this: “From Paul, called to be an of Jesus through the will of God, and our brother , to the of God in Corinth: to you who have been made holy in Christ Jesus and called to be , along with all who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, theirs and ours. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
“I always thank my God for you,” he went on, “for the grace of God that was given to you in Christ Jesus. In him you were made rich in everything, in all your speaking and in all your knowledge, just as the testimony of Christ was made firm in you.
“So you don’t lack any gift while you are waiting for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. And he will also make you strong until the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, and it was through him that you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
“Now I beg you, brothers and sisters,” Paul wrote, “through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ: all of you, speak as one. Let there be no divisions among you, but be made complete together, with the same mind and the same judgment.
“People from Chloe’s household have told me, my brothers and sisters, that you are quarreling among yourselves. Here is what I mean: each one of you says, ‘I follow Paul,’ ‘I follow ,’ ‘I follow ,’ and ‘I follow Christ.’
“Is Christ divided? Was Paul for you? Or were you into the name of Paul?
“I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one could say I had baptized you into my own name. (I also baptized the household of Stephanas. Other than them, I don’t know whether I baptized anyone else.)
“Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Good News, not with clever words, so that the of Christ would not be made empty.”
“The word of the cross,” Paul wrote, “is foolishness to those who are dying, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. It is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. I will bring the cleverness of the clever to nothing.’
“Where is the wise man? Where is the ? Where is the debater of this age? Hasn’t God turned the wisdom of this world into foolishness? In the wisdom of God, the world didn’t know God through its own wisdom. So God was pleased to use the foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe.
“Jews ask for signs, and Greeks want wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to Greeks. But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than people, and the weakness of God is stronger than people.
“Look at your calling, brothers and sisters. Not many of you are wise in human terms, not many are powerful, and not many come from noble families. But God chose the world’s foolish things, to shame those who are wise. God chose the world’s weak things, to shame what is strong. God chose what is lowly in the world, and what is looked down on, and things that don’t even exist, to bring to nothing the things that do, so that no one can boast before God.
“Because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who was made wisdom for us from God, and righteousness, and holiness, and . This is so that it will be just as it is written: ‘Whoever boasts, let him boast in the Lord.’”
“When I came to you, brothers and sisters,” Paul wrote, “I didn’t come with impressive speech or impressive wisdom as I announced the testimony of God to you. I made up my mind not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
“I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in great trembling. My speaking and my preaching didn’t come with the persuasive words of human wisdom, but with a showing of the Spirit and of power, so your faith wouldn’t stand on people’s wisdom, but on the power of God.
“We do speak wisdom, though, among those who are mature: not a wisdom of this world, or of this world’s rulers, who are coming to nothing. We speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom that has been hidden, which God decided on for our glory before the worlds began. None of the rulers of this world has known it. If they had known it, they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory.
“But as it is written, ‘Things that no eye saw and no ear heard, things that never entered the human heart: these God has prepared for those who love him.’
“But to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, including the deep things of God. Who among people knows what is in a person, except the person’s own spirit inside him? In the same way, no one knows the things of God except God’s Spirit.
“We did not receive the spirit of the world. We received the Spirit from God, so that we can know the things God has freely given us. And we speak of these things, not in words that human wisdom teaches, but in words the teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things.
“The natural person doesn’t receive the things of God’s Spirit, because they are foolishness to him. He can’t know them, because they are understood spiritually. But the one who is spiritual can judge all things, and he himself is to be judged by no one. ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord, to be his teacher?’ But we have the mind of Christ.”
“Brothers and sisters,” Paul wrote, “I couldn’t speak to you as spiritual people, but as people living by the flesh, as babies in Christ. I fed you milk, not solid food, because you weren’t ready yet. And you aren’t ready even now, because you are still living by the flesh. Where there is jealousy and fighting and taking sides among you, aren’t you living by the flesh, and following human ways? When one says, ‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos,’ aren’t you living by the flesh?
“Who, then, is Apollos? And who is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, each as the Lord gave to him. I planted. Apollos watered. But God made it grow. So the one who plants is nothing, and the one who waters is nothing; it is God who makes it grow. Now the one who plants and the one who waters are the same, but each will receive his own reward for the work he has done. We are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s farm, God’s building.
“By the grace of God that was given to me, I laid a foundation like a wise master builder, and another is building on it. But each one must be careful how he builds on it. No one can lay a different foundation from the one that has been laid, and that is Jesus Christ. But if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw, each person’s work will come to light. The Day will show it, because it is revealed in fire. The fire itself will test each person’s work, to show what kind it is. If what someone has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If someone’s work burns, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet as if through fire.
“Don’t you know that you are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him, because God’s temple is holy, and that temple is you.
“Don’t let anyone fool himself. If any of you thinks he is wise in this world, he should become a fool, so that he can become wise. The wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s eyes. As it is written, ‘He has caught the wise in their own tricks,’ and again, ‘The Lord knows that the reasoning of the wise is worthless.’
“So no one should boast about human beings. All things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or what is here now, or what is still to come. All are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.”
“So this is how people should think of us,” Paul wrote, “as Christ’s servants, and of God’s mysteries. Now stewards must be found faithful.
“It matters very little to me whether you judge me, or a human court does. I don’t even judge myself. I know of nothing against myself, but that doesn’t clear me. The one who judges me is the Lord. So don’t judge anything before its time, until the Lord comes. He will bring the hidden things of darkness into the light and show the plans of people’s hearts. Then each one will get his praise from God.
“Brothers and sisters, I have used myself and Apollos as an example of these things, for your sakes. I did this so that through us you may learn not to think beyond what is written, and so that none of you will be puffed up against one another. Who makes you different? What do you have that you didn’t receive? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?
“You are already satisfied. You have already become rich. You have come to reign without us. Yes, and I wish that you did reign, that we also might reign with you!
“I think God has put us, the apostles, on display last of all, like men sentenced to death. We have been made a show for the world to watch, both angels and people. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You have honor, but we are disgraced. To this day we are hungry and thirsty, we have too little to wear, we are beaten, and we have no settled home. We work hard with our own hands. When people curse us, we bless. When we are persecuted, we put up with it. When people say bad things about us, we plead with them. We have been made like the filth of the world, the dirt everyone wipes off, even until now.
“I don’t write these things to shame you, but to correct you as my children, whom I love. You may have ten thousand tutors in Christ, but you don’t have many fathers. In Christ Jesus I became your father through the Good News. So I beg you, imitate me.
“Because of this I have sent to you. He is my dear and faithful child in the Lord, and he will remind you of my ways in Christ, just as I teach everywhere, in every assembly.
“Now some are puffed up, as if I weren’t coming to you. But I’ll come to you soon, if the Lord is willing. And I will find out not what those puffed-up people say, but what power they have. God’s Kingdom is not in words, but in power. Which do you want? Should I come to you carrying a rod, or with love and a gentle spirit?”
“It is actually being reported,” Paul wrote, “that there is sexual sin among you, and of a kind not heard of even among the : one of you is sleeping with his father’s wife. You are puffed up! You should have grieved instead, so that the man who did this would be put out from among you.
“As for me, though I am away in body, I am with you in spirit, and I have already judged the man who did this, just as if I were present. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, and my spirit is with you, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, you are to give such a man up to for the destruction of the flesh, so the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
“Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast works its way through the whole lump of dough? Throw out the old yeast, so that you can be a new lump, just as you are without yeast. Christ, our , has been sacrificed in our place. So let’s keep the feast, not with old yeast, and not with the yeast of spite and wickedness, but with the of sincerity and truth.
“In my letter I wrote to you not to keep company with people who commit sexual sins. I never meant the people of this world who commit sexual sins, or the greedy and robbers, or those who worship , because then you would have to leave the world. But as it is, I wrote to you not to mix with anyone who is called a brother if he commits sexual sins, or is greedy, or worships idols, or slanders others, or gets drunk, or robs people. Don’t even eat with someone like that.
“Is it my place to judge those who are outside as well? Don’t you judge those who are inside? But God judges those who are outside. ‘Remove the wicked man from among you.’”
“If one of you has a case against his neighbor,” Paul wrote, “does he dare to take it to the unrighteous to be judged, and not to the saints? Don’t you know that the saints will judge the world? And if you will judge the world, are you unfit to judge the smallest matters? Don’t you know that we will judge angels? How much more can we judge the things that have to do with this life?
“So if you have matters of this life to judge, do you put people who count for nothing in the assembly in charge of judging them? I say this to make you ashamed. Isn’t there even one wise man among you who could decide between his brothers? But brother takes brother to court, and does it in front of unbelievers!
“Having lawsuits with one another at all is already a complete failure on your part. Why not accept being wronged? Why not accept being cheated? But no, you yourselves do wrong, and you cheat, and you do it to your brothers.
“Or don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s Kingdom? Don’t be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor extortionists, will inherit God’s Kingdom. Some of you were such, but you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and in the Spirit of our God.”
“‘All things are allowed for me,’” Paul wrote, “but not all things are useful. ‘All things are allowed for me,’ but I will not let anything have power over me.
“‘Food is for the belly, and the belly for food,’ but God will bring both of them to nothing. The body is not for sexual sin, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. Now God raised up the Lord, and he will raise us up too, by his power.
“Don’t you know that your bodies are parts of Christ? Should I then take the parts of Christ and make them parts of a ? Never! Or don’t you know that the one who is joined to a prostitute is one body with her? ‘The two,’ he says, ‘will become one flesh.’ But the one who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.
“Run away from sexual sin! ‘Every sin that a person does is outside the body,’ but the one who commits sexual sin sins against his own body.
“Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. Because of this, bring glory to God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”