1 Corinthians 1:17-2:5 Christ did not send me to baptize, but to proclaim the Good News; and not in merely wise words--lest the Cross of Christ should be deprived of its power.

WNT⁽ⁱ⁾ ¹⁷ Christ did not send me to baptize, but to proclaim the Good News; and not in merely wise words--lest the Cross of Christ should be deprived of its power. ¹⁸ For the Message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are on the way to perdition, but it is the power of God to those whom He is saving. ¹⁹ For so it stands written, "I WILL EXHIBIT THE NOTHINGNESS OF THE WISDOM OF THE WISE, AND THE INTELLIGENCE OF THE INTELLIGENT I WILL BRING TO NOUGHT." ²⁰ Where is your wise man? Where your expounder of the Law? Where your investigator of the questions of this present age? Has not God shown the world's wisdom to be utter foolishness? ²¹ For after the world by its wisdom--as God in His wisdom had ordained--had failed to gain the knowledge of God, God was pleased, by the apparent foolishness of the Message which we preach, to save those who accepted it. ²² Seeing that Jews demand miracles, and Greeks go in search of wisdom, ²³ while we proclaim a Christ who has been crucified--to the Jews a stumbling-block, to Gentiles foolishness, ²⁴ but to those who have received the Call, whether Jews or Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ Because that which the world deems foolish in God is wiser than men's wisdom, and that which it deems feeble in God is mightier than men's might. ²⁶ For consider, brethren, God's call to you. Not many who are wise with merely human wisdom, not many of position and influence, not many of noble birth have been called. ²⁷ But God has chosen the things which the world regards as foolish, in order to put its wise men to shame; and God has chosen the things which the world regards as destitute of influence, in order to put its powerful things to shame; ²⁸ and the things which the world regards as base, and those which it sets utterly at nought--things that have no existence--God has chosen in order to reduce to nothing things that do exist; ²⁹ to prevent any mortal man from boasting in the presence of God. ³⁰ But you--and it is all God's doing--are in Christ Jesus: He has become for us a wisdom which is from God, consisting of righteousness and sanctification and deliverance; ³¹ in order that it may be as Scripture says, "HE WHO BOASTS--LET HIS BOAST BE IN THE LORD." ² ¹ And as for myself, brethren, when I came to you, it was not with surpassing power of eloquence or earthly wisdom that I came, announcing to you that which God had commanded me to bear witness to. ² For I determined to be utterly ignorant, when among you, of everything except of Jesus Christ, and of Him as having been crucified. ³ And so far as I myself was concerned, I came to you in conscious feebleness and in fear and in deep anxiety. ⁴ And my language and the Message that I proclaimed were not adorned with persuasive words of earthly wisdom, but depended upon truths which the Spirit taught and mightily carried home; ⁵ so that your trust might rest not on the wisdom of man but on the power of God.