1 Corinthians Chapter 1

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

This book was written by Paul and Sosthenes, who Paul calls his brother. It’s not clear if this is the same Sosthenes that was beaten by a mob in Acts 18:17.

² Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both their’s and our’s:

³ Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

⁴ I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ;

⁵ That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge;

⁶ Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you:

⁷ So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ:

⁸ Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁹ God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

¹⁰ Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

The only way for a large group of people to become single-minded and to all come together as one with the same judgment is for that group to stop walking after their personal flesh and join in the Body of Christ (believers) where Jesus is the head and Jesus calls the shots. We get in to trouble as believers whenever we start doing the thinking for the Lord. What I mean is, we get derailed in following our hearts and what sounds like God to us… instead of consulting God. The only way to get rid of division is to walk in the Spirit. Walk in the Spirit when we read the word….listen to God for his interpretation of the word, allow the Holy Spirit to teach you …compare scripture with scripture…. pray that God guide you in all you do… and if each one of us do this, when we come together we will be of one mind already because the same Holy Spirit that teaches me teaches you. If there is ever conflict with believers, it’s because someone is not walking in the Holy Spirit.

¹¹ For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.

¹² Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.

¹³ Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?

¹⁴ I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius;

¹⁵ Lest any should say that I had baptized in mine own name.

¹⁶ And I baptized also the household of Stephanas: besides, I know not whether I baptized any other.

Here we have the body of believers dividing up into groups based on who lead them to the Lord or baptized them. It’s one thing to fondly remember and share your experience, it’s a completely different thing to start forming a class system based on it. Any time we start dividing up like this, there is pride involved or a group that feels they are somehow superior to the other. And just that quick, everyone is walking in the flesh and contention is now driving a wedge between the brethren. It looks like this deals mostly with who baptized who and who was the better baptizer…and while that was going on, they lost hold of the fact that the part that was important was each of them were baptized unto Jesus and not who did it.

¹⁷ For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.

Paul listed who he remembers baptizing, but then goes on to say that his calling is not as a baptizer, but as a preacher.

¹⁸ For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

The reason for Jesus dying for our sins, forgiveness by the Grace of our Lord…. the hope of our resurrection…. the preaching of the cross is something the world does not really understand. I’m sure we have all heard the unbeliever go in to why our belief in Jesus is silly to them, they don’t get it. We do though we know that Jesus is the way, Jesus is the truth, Jesus is the Savior… we are saved by grace only because we’re sinners…. that first sin would have excluded us from God for evermore, but Jesus paid for our sins to reconcile us to the father. The believer gets it… and it’s brilliant because it solves everything….. but it’s so easy to do, the wise of the world pass it on by, discredit it as being unscientific. They need proof they can discover under a microscope or with a telescope… they need proof before they can invest faith….and so… professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and passed on the greatest gift mankind will ever be offered…and they do it because it’s too simple.

¹⁹ For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

²⁰ Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

²¹ For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

²² For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:

²³ But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;

²⁴ But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

²⁵ Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

²⁶ For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:

²⁷ But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;

My personal thoughts: If a person has worldly wisdom, and they become a Christian, they will have a much harder battle to build faith because their knee-jerk reaction will be to look at problems and find solutions the way the world does, whereas the average person with a problem doesn’t look for solutions in worldly knowledge because they don’t have any, they just go straight to God. Like the philosopher who finds meaning for life in philosophical musing instead of finding it in God. The philosophical wisdom comes about by studying the behaviors of man and the outcomes… for example, “In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” While it’s clever for sure, it doesn’t really help me live my life ….so, it’s moronic in its wisdom….I already knew the person with the advantage has a better position…. all this dude did was said that in a clever way…it doesn’t change anything, it doesn’t give a solution. But because of the way he described the situation, so succinct while painting a picture that will stick with you of some one-eyed leader of a blind village, he seems like he knows the secrets to life itself….but what he really knows is how to say even the most obvious and trivial thing in a way that makes it sound like the keys to the universe.

²⁸ And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:

²⁹ That no flesh should glory in his presence.

No flesh….meaning no one who has invested their life in their flesh… who lived and walked after the things of the flesh. Now we of the spirit, do glory, but that glory doesn’t belong to us, it belongs to God.

³⁰ But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:

³¹ That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.