New Testament Plan

¹I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a deacon in the church in Cenchrea.

²Welcome her in the Lord as one who is worthy of honor among God’s people. Help her in whatever she needs, for she has been helpful to many, and especially to me.

³Give my greetings to Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in the ministry of Christ Jesus.

⁴In fact, they once risked their lives for me. I am thankful to them, and so are all the Gentile churches.

⁵Also give my greetings to the church that meets in their home. Greet my dear friend Epenetus. He was the first person from the province of Asia to become a follower of Christ.

⁶Give my greetings to Mary, who has worked so hard for your benefit.

⁷Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews, who were in prison with me. They are highly respected among the apostles and became followers of Christ before I did.

⁸Greet Ampliatus, my dear friend in the Lord.

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

¹⁰Greet Apelles, a good man whom Christ approves. And give my greetings to the believers from the household of Aristobulus.

¹¹Greet Herodion, my fellow Jew. Greet the Lord’s people from the household of Narcissus.

¹²Give my greetings to Tryphena and Tryphosa, the Lord’s workers, and to dear Persis, who has worked so hard for the Lord.

¹³Greet Rufus, whom the Lord picked out to be his very own; and also his dear mother, who has been a mother to me.

¹⁴Give my greetings to Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers and sisters who meet with them.

¹⁵Give my greetings to Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and to Olympas and all the believers who meet with them.

¹⁶Greet each other with a sacred kiss. All the churches of Christ send you their greetings.

¹⁷And now I make one more appeal, my dear brothers and sisters. Watch out for people who cause divisions and upset people’s faith by teaching things contrary to what you have been taught. Stay away from them.

¹⁸Such people are not serving Christ our Lord; they are serving their own personal interests. By smooth talk and glowing words they deceive innocent people.

¹⁹But everyone knows that you are obedient to the Lord. This makes me very happy. I want you to be wise in doing right and to stay innocent of any wrong.

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

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

²²I, Tertius, the one writing this letter for Paul, send my greetings, too, as one of the Lord’s followers.

²³Gaius says hello to you. He is my host and also serves as host to the whole church. Erastus, the city treasurer, sends you his greetings, and so does our brother Quartus.

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²⁵Now all glory to God, who is able to make you strong, just as my Good News says. This message about Jesus Christ has revealed his plan for you Gentiles, a plan kept secret from the beginning of time.

²⁶But now as the prophets foretold and as the eternal God has commanded, this message is made known to all Gentiles everywhere, so that they too might believe and obey him.

²⁷All glory to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, forever. Amen.

¹This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and from our brother Sosthenes.

²I am writing to God’s church in Corinth, to you who have been called by God to be his own holy people. He made you holy by means of Christ Jesus, just as he did for all people everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.

³May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.

⁴I always thank my God for you and for the gracious gifts he has given you, now that you belong to Christ Jesus.

⁵Through him, God has enriched your church in every way — with all of your eloquent words and all of your knowledge.

⁶This confirms that what I told you about Christ is true.

⁷Now you have every spiritual gift you need as you eagerly wait for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁸He will keep you strong to the end so that you will be free from all blame on the day when our Lord Jesus Christ returns.

⁹God will do this, for he is faithful to do what he says, and he has invited you into partnership with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

¹⁰I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live in harmony with each other. Let there be no divisions in the church. Rather, be of one mind, united in thought and purpose.

¹¹For some members of Chloe’s household have told me about your quarrels, my dear brothers and sisters.

¹²Some of you are saying, “I am a follower of Paul.” Others are saying, “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Peter, ” or “I follow only Christ.”

¹³Has Christ been divided into factions? Was I, Paul, crucified for you? Were any of you baptized in the name of Paul? Of course not!

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

¹⁵for now no one can say they were baptized in my name.

¹⁶(Oh yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas, but I don’t remember baptizing anyone else.)

¹⁷For Christ didn’t send me to baptize, but to preach the Good News — and not with clever speech, for fear that the cross of Christ would lose its power.

¹⁸The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God.

¹⁹As the Scriptures say, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent.”

²⁰So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish.

²¹Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe.

²²It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom.

²³So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense.

²⁴But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

²⁵This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength.

²⁶Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you.

²⁷Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful.

²⁸God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important.

²⁹As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God.

³⁰God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin.

³¹Therefore, as the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the LORD.”

¹When I first came to you, dear brothers and sisters, I didn’t use lofty words and impressive wisdom to tell you God’s secret plan.

²For I decided that while I was with you I would forget everything except Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified.

³I came to you in weakness — timid and trembling.

⁴And my message and my preaching were very plain. Rather than using clever and persuasive speeches, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit.

⁵I did this so you would trust not in human wisdom but in the power of God.

⁶Yet when I am among mature believers, I do speak with words of wisdom, but not the kind of wisdom that belongs to this world or to the rulers of this world, who are soon forgotten.

⁷No, the wisdom we speak of is the mystery of God — his plan that was previously hidden, even though he made it for our ultimate glory before the world began.

⁸But the rulers of this world have not understood it; if they had, they would not have crucified our glorious Lord.

⁹That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.”

¹⁰But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets.

¹¹No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit.

¹²And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.

¹³When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths.

¹⁴But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means.

¹⁵Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others.

¹⁶For, “Who can know the LORD’s thoughts? Who knows enough to teach him?” But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.