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17God didn't send me out to collect a following for myself, but to preach the Message of what he has done, collecting a following for him. And he didn't send me to do it with a lot of fancy rhetoric of my own, lest the powerful action at the center-Christ on the Cross-be trivialized into mere words.

18The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. 19It's written,
I'll turn conventional wisdom on its head,
I'll expose so-called experts as crackpots.

20So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn't God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense? 21Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered dumb-preaching, of all things!-to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.

22While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, 23we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle-and Greeks pass it off as absurd. 24But to us who are personally called by God himself-both Jews and Greeks-Christ is God's ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one. 25Human wisdom is so tinny, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can't begin to compete with God's “weakness.”

26Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don't see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. 27Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, 28chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? 29That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. 30Everything that we have-right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start-comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. 31That's why we have the saying, “If you're going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.”

3I was unsure of how to go about this, and felt totally inadequate-I was scared to death, if you want the truth of it-4and so nothing I said could have impressed you or anyone else. But the Message came through anyway. God's Spirit and God's power did it, 5which made it clear that your life of faith is a response to God's power, not to some fancy mental or emotional footwork by me or anyone else.

6We, of course, have plenty of wisdom to pass on to you once you get your feet on firm spiritual ground, but it's not popular wisdom, the fashionable wisdom of high-priced experts that will be out-of-date in a year or so. 7God's wisdom is something mysterious that goes deep into the interior of his purposes. You don't find it lying around on the surface. It's not the latest message, but more like the oldest-what God determined as the way to bring out his best in us, long before we ever arrived on the scene. 8The experts of our day haven't a clue about what this eternal plan is. If they had, they wouldn't have killed the Master of the God-designed life on a cross. 9That's why we have this Scripture text:
No one's ever seen or heard anything like this,
Never so much as imagined anything quite like it-
What God has arranged for those who love him.

10But you've seen and heard it because God by his Spirit has brought it all out into the open before you.
The Spirit, not content to flit around on the surface, dives into the depths of God, and brings out what God planned all along. 11Who ever knows what you're thinking and planning except you yourself? The same with God-except that he not only knows what he's thinking, 12but he lets us in on it. God offers a full report on the gifts of life and salvation that he is giving us. 13We don't have to rely on the world's guesses and opinions. We didn't learn this by reading books or going to school; we learned it from God, who taught us person-to-person through Jesus, and we're passing it on to you in the same firsthand, personal way.

14The unspiritual self, just as it is by nature, can't receive the gifts of God's Spirit. There's no capacity for them. They seem like so much silliness. Spirit can be known only by spirit-God's Spirit and our spirits in open communion. 15Spiritually alive, we have access to everything God's Spirit is doing, and can't be judged by unspiritual critics. 16Isaiah's question, “Is there anyone around who knows God's Spirit, anyone who knows what he is doing?” has been answered: Christ knows, and we have Christ's Spirit.

5Who do you think Paul is, anyway? Or Apollos, for that matter? Servants, both of us-servants who waited on you as you gradually learned to entrust your lives to our mutual Master. We each carried out our servant assignment. 6I planted the seed, Apollos watered the plants, but God made you grow. 7It's not the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the center of this process but God, who makes things grow. 8Planting and watering are menial servant jobs at minimum wages. 9What makes them worth doing is the God we are serving. You happen to be God's field in which we are working.
Or, to put it another way, you are God's house. 10Using the gift God gave me as a good architect, I designed blueprints; Apollos is putting up the walls. Let each carpenter who comes on the job take care to build on the foundation! 11Remember, there is only one foundation, the one already laid: Jesus Christ. 12Take particular care in picking out your building materials. 13Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you'll be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won't get by with a thing. 14If your work passes inspection, fine; 15if it doesn't, your part of the building will be torn out and started over. But you won't be torn out; you'll survive-but just barely.

16You realize, don't you, that you are the temple of God, and God himself is present in you? 17No one will get by with vandalizing God's temple, you can be sure of that. God's temple is sacred-and you, remember, are the temple.

18Don't fool yourself. Don't think that you can be wise merely by being up-to-date with the times. 19Be God's fool-that's the path to true wisdom. What the world calls smart, God calls stupid. It's written in Scripture,
He exposes the chicanery of the chic.

20The Master sees through the smoke screens
of the know-it-alls.

21I don't want to hear any of you bragging about yourself or anyone else. Everything is already yours as a gift-22Paul, Apollos, Peter, the world, life, death, the present, the future-all of it is yours, 23and you are privileged to be in union with Christ, who is in union with God.

5So don't get ahead of the Master and jump to conclusions with your judgments before all the evidence is in. When he comes, he will bring out in the open and place in evidence all kinds of things we never even dreamed of-inner motives and purposes and prayers. Only then will any one of us get to hear the “Well done!” of God.

6All I'm doing right now, friends, is showing how these things pertain to Apollos and me so that you will learn restraint and not rush into making judgments without knowing all the facts. It's important to look at things from God's point of view. I would rather not see you inflating or deflating reputations based on mere hearsay.

7For who do you know that really knows you, knows your heart? And even if they did, is there anything they would discover in you that you could take credit for? Isn't everything you have and everything you are sheer gifts from God? So what's the point of all this comparing and competing? 8You already have all you need. You already have more access to God than you can handle. Without bringing either Apollos or me into it, you're sitting on top of the world-at least God's world-and we're right there, sitting alongside you!

9It seems to me that God has put us who bear his Message on stage in a theater in which no one wants to buy a ticket. We're something everyone stands around and stares at, like an accident in the street. 10We're the Messiah's misfits. You might be sure of yourselves, but we live in the midst of frailties and uncertainties. You might be well-thought-of by others, but we're mostly kicked around. 11Much of the time we don't have enough to eat, we wear patched and threadbare clothes, we get doors slammed in our faces, 12and we pick up odd jobs anywhere we can to eke out a living. When they call us names, we say, “God bless you.” 13When they spread rumors about us, we put in a good word for them. We're treated like garbage, potato peelings from the culture's kitchen. And it's not getting any better.

14I'm not writing all this as a neighborhood scold just to make you feel rotten. I'm writing as a father to you, my children. I love you and want you to grow up well, not spoiled. 15There are a lot of people around who can't wait to tell you what you've done wrong, but there aren't many fathers willing to take the time and effort to help you grow up. It was as Jesus helped me proclaim God's Message to you that I became your father. 16I'm not, you know, asking you to do anything I'm not already doing myself.

17This is why I sent Timothy to you earlier. He is also my dear son, and true to the Master. He will refresh your memory on the instructions I regularly give all the churches on the way of Christ.

18I know there are some among you who are so full of themselves they never listen to anyone, let alone me. They don't think I'll ever show up in person. 19But I'll be there sooner than you think, God willing, and then we'll see if they're full of anything but hot air. 20God's Way is not a matter of mere talk; it's an empowered life.

21So how should I prepare to come to you? As a severe disciplinarian who makes you toe the mark? Or as a good friend and counselor who wants to share heart-to-heart with you? You decide.