New Testament Plan

¹I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae.

²I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me.

³Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus.

⁴They risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them.

⁵Greet also the church that meets at their house. Greet my dear friend Epenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in the province of Asia.

⁶Greet Mary, who worked very hard for you.

⁷Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.

⁸Greet Ampliatus, my dear friend in the Lord.

⁹Greet Urbanus, our co-worker in Christ, and my dear friend Stachys.

¹⁰Greet Apelles, whose fidelity to Christ has stood the test. Greet those who belong to the household of Aristobulus.

¹¹Greet Herodion, my fellow Jew. Greet those in the household of Narcissus who are in the Lord.

¹²Greet Tryphena and Tryphosa, those women who work hard in the Lord. Greet my dear friend Persis, another woman who has worked very hard in the Lord.

¹³Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother, who has been a mother to me, too.

¹⁴Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas and the other brothers and sisters with them.

¹⁵Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas and all the Lord’s people who are with them.

¹⁶Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ send greetings.

¹⁷I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them.

¹⁸For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people.

¹⁹Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I rejoice because of you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil.

²⁰The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.

²¹Timothy, my co-worker, sends his greetings to you, as do Lucius, Jason and Sosipater, my fellow Jews.

²²I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord.

²³Gaius, whose hospitality I and the whole church here enjoy, sends you his greetings. Erastus, who is the city’s director of public works, and our brother Quartus send you their greetings.

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²⁵Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past,

²⁶but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all the Gentiles might come to the obedience that comes from faith—

²⁷to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen.

¹Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,

²To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours:

³Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

⁴I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus.

⁵For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge—

⁶God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you.

⁷Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.

⁸He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁹God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

¹⁰I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.

¹¹My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.

¹²What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.”

¹³Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?

¹⁴I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius,

¹⁵so no one can say that you were baptized in my name.

¹⁶(Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.)

¹⁷For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

¹⁸For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

¹⁹For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

²⁰Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

²¹For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.

²²Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom,

²³but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,

²⁴but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

²⁵For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

²⁶Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.

²⁷But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

²⁸God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are,

²⁹so that no one may boast before him.

³⁰It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.

³¹Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”

¹And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.

²For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

³I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling.

⁴My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power,

⁵so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.

⁶We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.

⁷No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.

⁸None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

⁹However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”— the things God has prepared for those who love him—

¹⁰these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.

¹¹For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

¹²What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.

¹³This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.

¹⁴The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.

¹⁵The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,

¹⁶for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.