Greetings from Paul
(2 Corinthians 1:1-2)

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

2To the church of God being in Corinth, having been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called holy, together with all those in every place calling on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both theirs and ours:

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

Thanksgiving
(Philippians 1:3-11; Colossians 1:3-14; 2 Thessalonians 1:3-4)

4I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God having been given you in Christ Jesus, 5that in everything you have been enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge, 6as the testimony about Christ was confirmed in you, 7so as for you not to be lacking in any gift as you eagerly await the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8who also will sustain you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9God is faithful, by whom you were called into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Unity in the Church
(Psalm 133:1-3; Ephesians 4:1-16)

10Now I exhort you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and there be no divisions among you, but you may be having been knit together in the same mind and in the same judgment. 11For it was shown to me concerning you, my brothers, by those of Chloe, that there are quarrels among you. 12Now I mean this, that each of you says, “I indeed am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos,” and “I of Cephas,”a and “I of Christ.”

13Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized into the name of Paul? 14I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15so that no one should say that you were baptized into my name. 16Now also I baptized the household of Stephanas; as to the rest, I do not know whether I baptized any other. 17For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel; not in wisdom of discourse, so that the cross of the Christ should not be emptied of its power.

The Message of the Cross

18For the message of the cross is foolishness to those indeed perishing, but to us being saved it is the power of God. 19For it has been written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;

and the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”b

20Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater 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 God, God was pleased through the foolishness of the proclamation to save those believing.

22Forasmuch as both Jews ask for signs, and Greeks seek wisdom, 23we, however, preach Christ having been crucified, a stumbling block indeed to the Jewish and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but those called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

25For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God stronger than men.

Wisdom from God

26For consider your calling, brothers, that not many were wise according to the flesh, not many powerful, not many of noble birth. 27But God has chosen the foolish things of the world that He might shame the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world that He might shame the strong; 28and the low-born of the world, and the things being despised, God also chose—the things not being—that He might annul the things being, 29so that all flesh may not boast before God.

30But out of Him, you are in Christ Jesus, who has been made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31in order that, as it has been written: “The one boasting, let him boast in the Lord.”c