1 Corinthians 1:22

THE MESSAGE

While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle—and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But 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. Human wisdom is so tinny, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can't begin to compete with God's "weakness."

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
For the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks seek wisdom,

King James Version (1611)
For the Iewes require a signe, and the Greekes seeke after wisedome.

King James Version
For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:

English Standard Version
For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,

New American Standard Bible
For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom;

New Century Version
The Jews ask for miracles, and the Greeks want wisdom.

Amplified Bible
For Jews demand signs (attesting miracles), and Greeks pursue [worldly] wisdom and philosophy,

New American Standard Bible (1995)
For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom;

Legacy Standard Bible
For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom,

Berean Standard Bible
Jews demand signs and Greeks search for wisdom,

Contemporary English Version
Jews ask for miracles, and Greeks want something that sounds wise.

Complete Jewish Bible
Precisely because Jews ask for signs and Greeks try to find wisdom,

Darby Translation
Since Jews indeed ask for signs, and Greeks seek wisdom;

Easy-to-Read Version
The Jews ask for miraculous signs, and the Greeks want wisdom.

Geneva Bible (1587)
Seeing also that the Iewes require a signe, and the Grecians seeke after wisdome.

George Lamsa Translation
For the Jews demand signs, and the Syrians seek after wisdom:

Good News Translation
Jews want miracles for proof, and Greeks look for wisdom.

Lexham English Bible
For indeed, Jews ask for sign miracles and Greeks seek wisdom,

Literal Translation
And since Jews ask for a sign, and Greeks seek wisdom,

American Standard Version
Seeing that Jews ask for signs, and Greeks seek after wisdom:

Bible in Basic English
Seeing that the Jews make request for signs, and the Greeks are looking for knowledge:

Hebrew Names Version
For Yehudim ask for signs, Yevanim seek after wisdom,

International Standard Version
Jews ask for signs, and Greeks look for wisdom,Matthew 12:38; 16:1; Mark 8:11; Luke 11:16; John 4:48;">[xr]

Etheridge Translation
For the Jihudoyee demand signs, and the Aramoyee require wisdom;

Murdock Translation
Because the Jews ask for signs, and the Gentiles demand wisdom.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
For the Iewes require a signe, & the Grekes seke after wisedome:

English Revised Version
Seeing that Jews ask for signs, and Greeks seek after wisdom:

World English Bible
For Jews ask for signs, Greeks seek after wisdom,

Wesley's New Testament (1755)
For whereas the Jews demand signs, and the Greeks seek wisdom, We preach Christ crucified,

Weymouth's New Testament
Seeing that Jews demand miracles, and Greeks go in search of wisdom,

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
For Jewis seken signes, and Grekis seken wisdom;

Update Bible Version
Seeing that Jews ask for signs, and Greeks seek after wisdom:

Webster's Bible Translation
For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek wisdom:

New English Translation
For Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks ask for wisdom,

New King James Version
For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom;

New Living Translation
It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom.

New Life Bible
The Jews are looking for something special to see. The Greek people are looking for the answer in wisdom.

New Revised Standard
For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom,

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Seeing that both, Jews for signs, do ask, and, Greeks for wisdom, do seek,

Douay-Rheims Bible
For both the Jews require signs: and the Greeks seek after wisdom.

Revised Standard Version
For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,

Tyndale New Testament (1525)
For ye Iewes requyre a signe and the Grekes seke after wysdome.

Young's Literal Translation
Since also Jews ask a sign, and Greeks seek wisdom,

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
For the Iewes requyre tokens, and the Grekes axe after wyssdome.

Mace New Testament (1729)
while the Jews require signs, and the Greeks seek wisdom:

Simplified Cowboy Version
The Jews want their miracles and the Greeks their lofty philosophies, so they both turn up their noses at our foolishness.

Contextual Overview

¹⁷ God 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. It's written, I'll turn conventional wisdom on its head, I'll expose so-called experts as crackpots. So 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? Since 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, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle—and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But 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. Human 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. Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these "nobodies" to expose the hollow pretensions of the "somebodies"? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That's why we have the saying, "If you're going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God."

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

the Jews: Matthew 12:38, Matthew 12:39, Matthew 16:1-4, Mark 8:11, Luke 11:16, Luke 11:20, John 2:18, John 4:28

the Greeks: Acts 17:18-21

Reciprocal: 1 Kings 13:3 - General Matthew 11:6 - whosoever Luke 11:29 - they John 4:48 - Except John 6:30 - What John 7:48 - General Acts 14:1 - Greeks Acts 19:10 - both Acts 20:21 - to the Jews 1 Corinthians 2:2 - not

Cross-References

Genesis 1:14
God spoke: "Lights! Come out! Shine in Heaven's sky! Separate Day from Night. Mark seasons and days and years, Lights in Heaven's sky to give light to Earth." And there it was.

Genesis 9:1
God blessed Noah and his sons: He said, "Prosper! Reproduce! Fill the Earth! Every living creature—birds, animals, fish—will fall under your spell and be afraid of you. You're responsible for them. All living creatures are yours for food; just as I gave you the plants, now I give you everything else. Except for meat with its lifeblood still in it—don't eat that.

Genesis 30:27
Laban said, "If you please, I have learned through divine inquiry that God has blessed me because of you." He went on, "So name your wages. I'll pay you."

Genesis 35:11
God continued, I am The Strong God. Have children! Flourish! A nation—a whole company of nations!— will come from you. Kings will come from your loins; the land I gave Abraham and Isaac I now give to you, and pass it on to your descendants.

Job 40:15
"Look at the land beast, Behemoth. I created him as well as you. Grazing on grass, docile as a cow— Just look at the strength of his back, the powerful muscles of his belly. His tail sways like a cedar in the wind; his huge legs are like beech trees. His skeleton is made of steel, every bone in his body hard as steel. Most magnificent of all my creatures, but I still lead him around like a lamb! The grass-covered hills serve him meals, while field mice frolic in his shadow. He takes afternoon naps under shade trees, cools himself in the reedy swamps, Lazily cool in the leafy shadows as the breeze moves through the willows. And when the river rages he doesn't budge, stolid and unperturbed even when the Jordan goes wild. But you'd never want him for a pet— you'd never be able to housebreak him!"

Job 42:12
God blessed Job's later life even more than his earlier life. He ended up with fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand teams of oxen, and one thousand donkeys. He also had seven sons and three daughters. He named the first daughter Dove, the second, Cinnamon, and the third, Darkeyes. There was not a woman in that country as beautiful as Job's daughters. Their father treated them as equals with their brothers, providing the same inheritance.

Psalms 128:3
Your wife will bear children as a vine bears grapes, your household lush as a vineyard, The children around your table as fresh and promising as young olive shoots. Stand in awe of God's Yes. Oh, how he blesses the one who fears God !

Proverbs 10:22
God 's blessing makes life rich; nothing we do can improve on God.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

For the Jews require a sign,.... The Jews had always been used to miracles, in confirmation of the mission of the prophets sent unto them, and therefore insisted on a sign proving Jesus to be the true Messiah; except signs and wonders were wrought, they would not believe; and though miracles were wrought in great numbers, and such as never man did, they remained incredulous, and persisted in demanding a sign from heaven, and in their own way; and it was told them that no other sign should be given them, but that of the prophet Jonah, by which was signified the resurrection of Christ from the dead; this was given them, and yet they believed not, but went on to require a sign still; nothing but miracles would do with them, and they must be such as they themselves pleased: the Alexandrian copy, and some others, and the Vulgate Latin version, read "signs", in the plural number:

and the Greeks seek after wisdom; the wisdom of the world, natural wisdom, philosophy, the reason of things, the flowers of rhetoric, the ornaments of speech, the beauties of oratory, the justness of style and diction; as for doctrines they regarded none, but such as they could comprehend with, and account for by their carnal reason, everything else they despised and exploded. Hence we often read l of חכמת יוונית, "the Grecian wisdom", or wisdom of the Greeks; which, the Jews say m, lay in metaphors and dark sayings, which were not understood but by them that were used to it; the study of it was forbidden by them, though some of their Rabbins were conversant with it n.

l T. Bab Menachot, fol 99. 2. Bava Kama, fol. 82. 2. m Maimon & Bartenora in Misn. Sota, c. 9. sect. 14. n Shalshelet Hakabala, fol. 25. 1. Ganz. Tzemach David, par. 3. fol. 31. 2.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For the Jews require a sign - A miracle, a prodigy, an evidence of divine interposition. This was the characteristic of the Jewish people. God had manifested himself to them by miracles and wonders in a remarkable manner in past times, and they greatly prided themselves on that fact, and always demanded it when any new messenger came to them, professing to be sent from God. This propensity they often evinced in their contact with the Lord Jesus; Matthew 12:38; Matthew 16:1; Mark 8:11; Luke 11:16; Luke 12:54-56. Many mss., instead of “sign” here in the singular, read “signs” in the plural; and Griesbach has introduced that reading into the text. The sense is nearly the same, and it means that it was a characteristic of the Jews to demand the constant exhibition of miracles and wonders; and it is also implied here, I think, by the reasoning of the apostle, that they believed that the communication of such signs to them as a people, would secure their salvation, and they therefore despised the simple preaching of a crucified Messiah. They expected a Messiah that should come with the exhibition of some stupendous signs and wonders from heaven (Matthew 12:38, etc., as above); they looked for the displays of amazing power in his coming, and they anticipated that he would deliver them from their enemies by mere power; and they, therefore, were greatly offended 1 Corinthians 1:23, by the simple doctrine of a crucified Messiah.

And the Greeks ... - Perhaps this means the pagan in general, in opposition to the Jews; see the note at Romans 1:16. It was, however, especially the characteristic of the Greek philosophers. They seek for schemes of philosophy and religion that shall depend on human wisdom, and they therefore despise the gospel.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 22. For the Jews require a sign — Instead of σημειον, a sign, ABCDEFG, several others, both the Syriac, Coptic, Vulgate, and Itala, with many of the fathers, have σημεια, signs; which reading, as undoubtedly genuine, Griesbach has admitted into the text. There never was a people in the universe more difficult to be persuaded of the truth than the Jews: and had not their religion been incontestably proved by the most striking and indubitable miracles, they never would have received it. This slowness of heart to believe, added to their fear of being deceived, induced them to require miracles to attest every thing that professed to come from God. They were a wicked and adulterous generation, continually seeking signs, and never saying, It is enough. But the sign which seems particularly referred to here is the assumption of secular power, which they expected in the Messiah; and because this sign did not appear in Christ, therefore they rejected him.

And the Greeks seek after wisdom. — Such wisdom, or philosophy, as they found in the writings of Cicero, Seneca, Plato, &c., which was called philosophy, and which came recommended to them in all the beauties and graces of the Latin and Greek languages.