First Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:17-25

¹⁷ For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
¹⁸ For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
¹⁹ For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will thwart.”
²⁰ Where 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?
²¹ For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
²² For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,
²³ but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
²⁴ but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
²⁵ For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.