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1 Corinthians 1 From The Living Bible
God will surely do this for you, for he always does just what he says!
From Paul, chosen by God to be Jesus Christ’s missionary, and from brother Sosthemes.
To: the Christians in Corinth, invited by God to be his people and made acceptable to him by Christ Jesus. And to: all Christians everywhere — whoever calls upon the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and theirs.
May God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you all his blessings, and great piece of heart and mind.
I can never stop thanking God for all the wonderful things he has given you, now that you are Christ’s. He has enriched your whole life. He has helped you speak out for him and has given you a full understanding of the truth. What I told you Christ could do for you has happened!
Now you have every grace and blessing; every spiritual gift in power for doing his will are yours during this time of waiting for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And he guarantees right up to the end that you will be counted three from all sin and guilt on that day when he returns. God will surely do this for you, for he always does just what he says, and he is the one who invited you into this wonderful friendship with his son, even Christ our Lord.
But, dear brothers, I beg you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to stop arguing among yourselves. Let there be real harmony so that there won’t be split in the church. I plead with you to be of one mind, united in thought and purpose. For some of those who lived at Chloe’s house at hold many of your arguments and quarrels, dear brothers. Some of you are saying, “I am a follower of Paul”; others say that they are for Appolos or for Peter; in some that they alone are the true followers of Christ. And so, in effect, you have broken Christ into many pieces.
But did I, Paul, died for your sins? Were any of you baptized in my name? I am so thankful now that I didn’t baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius. For now no one can think I have been trying to start something new, beginning a “Church of Paul.” Oh, yes, and I baptize the family of Stephanas. I don’t remember ever baptizing anyone else. For Christ didn’t send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel; and even my preaching sounds poor, for I do not fill my sermons with profound words in high sounding ideas, for fear of diluting the mighty power there is in the simple message of the cross of Christ.
I know very well how foolish it sounds to those who are lost when they hear that Jesus died to save them. But we who are saved recognize this message is the very power of God. For God says, “I will destroy all human plans of salvation no matter how wise they seem to be, and ignore the best ideas of men, even the most brilliant of them.”
So what about these wise men, these scholars, these brilliant debaters of the world’s great affairs? God has made them all look foolish, and shown their wisdom to be useless nonsense. For God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never find God through human brilliance, and then he stepped in and saved all those who believed his message which the world calls foolish and silly. It seems foolish to the Jews because they want a sign from heaven as proof that what is preached is true; and it is foolish to the Gentiles because they believe only what agrees with their philosophy and seems wise to them. So when we preach about Christ dying to save them, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense. But God has opened the eyes of those called to salvation,, to see that Christ is the mighty power of God to save them; Christ himself is the center of God’s wise plan for they are salvation. This so-called “foolish” plan of God is far wiser than the wisest plan of the wisest man, and God in his weakness — Christ dying on the cross — is far stronger than any man
Notice among yourselves, dear brothers, that few of you who follow Christ have big names or power or wealth. Instead, God has deliberately chosen to use the ideas the world considers foolish enough little work in order to shame those people considered by the world as wise and great. He has chosen a plan despised by the world, counted as nothing at all, and used it to bring down to nothing those the world considers great, so that no one anywhere can ever boast in the presence of God.
For it is from God alone that you have your life through Christ Jesus. He showed us God’s plan of salvation; he was the one who made us acceptable to God: he made us pure and holy and gave himself to purchase our salvation. As it says in the Scriptures, “if anyone is going to boast, let him boast only of what the Lord has done.”
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for God surely does what he says. In the Scripture we see a description of the differences between those who believe and those who do not. In our societies today we see people chasing all sorts of different things that the humans and or supposedly the brilliant people have suggested that we should follow and chase after. Too many people this is very alluring and so they line up and follow like sheep headed off to the slaughter.
Christ has called us to something much different than we see in the above scripture that the world calls it foolish. It is interesting to note that these of Scripture to the talks about our position in society not being one of great power and wealth. I believe this to be the case because both of those things can take us away from God if our hearts are not properly prepared. Both of those things can also remove us from the daily relationships that God has put us into to be the shining beacon and to display the glory of God in our own lives.
When you look at it and how many stories have you heard about how fame and fortune brings people down. It’s literally quite a daily event and we can see it in such shows as entertainment tonight that is just a show that is filled with gossip and rumors and dedicated to bringing you news about the rich and famous and doing what they can to exploit these people.
As Christians we are called to something much different any truth that the world will call foolish. In a day of sophistication, and a day where technology is moving at the speed of light, and there is more information than we know what to do with available at our fingertips, the great distraction away from Christ is upon us. “Brilliant minds” of today are not sharing the good news of the gospel and of Jesus, and the funny thing is God calls them all nonsense and that even the most brilliant of scholars great thoughts and could not even come close to the thoughts of God.
from an intellectual standpoint, knowing the truth and salvation and in Jesus can certainly be looked at as nonsense by a nonbeliever. But for those who have been called, and had a transformation of the mind through the love of Christ has been poured out in your spirit, we know better. Even in Paul’s life, who was Saul, before coming to the Lord counted all the ways of Jesus as foolish and persecuted thousands of people in jail many who believed in Jesus. So you see, those who are non-Christians will look down upon what we believe, but we must understand and not rebel against them, because they just do not know the truth. This is where love and compassion for others far beyond ourselves comes into play. In what Paul was talking about above and as he opens up the book of Corinthians is talking to Christians to become of one mind and of one purpose. It is evident today with all the church splits in different denominations, that this is a real concern today that is hurting the church and more importantly hurting the message of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
So I ask you to be very careful about your own attitude within your own church towards others. One of the things I really love about the church I am in, is that the leadership is committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and committed to keeping the doors open to anyone who one walks through them without an eye of judgment being cast down upon them. One of the things our pastors talked about is that there’s only two directions that you can be going in, either towards Christ were away from Christ. There is no really in between or gray area.
Talking to my daughter last night she was speaking about the belt of truth that is spoken about when we are put on the whole armor of God. She really understands that there is no Gray area with truth. You are either wearing it and walking in the truth or you’re not. This is a very important lesson to learn in one I am grateful that she is learning at such a young age. The world is constantly trying to dilute the truth and make us believe in war the truth that we know that is in the Bible to make it out to be something different. This is a constant pull away from the message of Christ and of God. The battle is on in the fight for your soul is on. If you think there is a gray area you are gravely mistaken. If you think you can be a lukewarm Christian, you are gravely mistaken. You are either for Christ or against Christ. It’s black and white baby, and that is the truth and the message from God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
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