Study Desk

Praise God! He can make you strong by means of my good news, which is the message about Jesus Christ. For ages and ages this message was kept secret,

but now at last it has been told. The eternal God commanded his prophets to write about the good news, so that all nations would obey and have faith.

And now, because of Jesus Christ, we can praise the only wise God forever! Amen.

From Paul, chosen by God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and from Sosthenes, who is also a follower.

My prayer is that God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ will be kind to you and will bless you with peace!

I never stop thanking my God for being kind enough to give you Christ Jesus,

God can be trusted, and he chose you to be partners with his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

I thank God that I didn't baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius.

As God says in the Scriptures, "I will destroy the wisdom of all who claim to be wise. I will confuse those who think they know so much."

What happened to those wise people? What happened to those experts in the Scriptures? What happened to the ones who think they have all the answers? Didn't God show that the wisdom of this world is foolish?

God was wise and decided not to let the people of this world use their wisdom to learn about him. Instead, God chose to save only those who believe the foolish message we preach.

Even when God is foolish, he is wiser than everyone else, and even when God is weak, he is stronger than everyone else.

My dear friends, remember what you were when God chose you. The people of this world didn't think that many of you were wise. Only a few of you were in places of power, and not many of you came from important families.

But God chose the foolish things of this world to put the wise to shame. He chose the weak things of this world to put the powerful to shame.

What the world thinks is worthless, useless, and nothing at all is what God has used to destroy what the world considers important.

God did all this to keep anyone from bragging to him.

Friends, when I came and told you the mystery that God had shared with us, I didn't use big words or try to sound wise.

We speak of God's hidden and mysterious wisdom that God decided to use for our glory long before the world began.

But it is just as the Scriptures say, "What God has planned for people who love him is more than eyes have seen or ears have heard. It has never even entered our minds!"

God's Spirit has shown you everything. His Spirit finds out everything, even what is deep in the mind of God.