12. This is what I mean: Each of you is saying, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.”
13. Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in Paul’s name?
14. I thank God that I didn’t baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius
15. so that no one can say you were baptized in my name.
16. I also baptized Stephanas and his family. Beyond that, I’m not sure whether I baptized anyone else.
17. Christ didn’t send me to baptize. Instead, he sent me to spread the Good News. I didn’t use intellectual arguments. That would have made the cross of Christ lose its meaning.
18. The message about the cross is nonsense to those who are being destroyed, but it is God’s power to us who are being saved.
19. Scripture says,“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise.I will reject the intelligence of intelligent people.”
20. Where is the wise person? Where is the scholar? Where is the persuasive speaker of our time? Hasn’t God turned the wisdom of the world into nonsense?
21. The world with its wisdom was unable to recognize God in terms of his own wisdom. So God decided to use the nonsense of the Good News we speak to save those who believe.
22. Jews ask for miraculous signs, and Greeks look for wisdom,
23. but our message is that Christ was crucified. This offends Jewish people and makes no sense to people who are not Jewish.
24. But to those Jews and Greeks who are called, he is Christ, God’s power and God’s wisdom.
25. God’s nonsense is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
26. Brothers and sisters, consider what you were when God called you to be Christians. Not many of you were wise from a human point of view. You were not in powerful positions or in the upper social classes.