If one compares Revised Standard Version with Good News Bible, it is clear how much Good News Bible has changed the structure of the Greek in order to bring out the meaning more clearly. For since introduces the reason why it pleased God … to save those who believe. There is a contrast involved between the first and second parts of this verse. Good News Bible‘s “Instead” makes this contrast clear.

The phrase in the wisdom of God may also be rendered as “using his [God’s] great wisdom (or, intelligence).”

World see the comments on verse 20 for a discussion of this word.

Most translations and commentaries assume that verse 21 refers to two sorts of wisdom: God’s wisdom and human wisdom. Revised Standard Version‘s rather literal translation does not make this clear. It is grammatically possible that through wisdom repeats the meaning of in the wisdom of God, but this is most unlikely. The words translated through wisdom may also mean “by means of wisdom.” Paul’s point, though, is not that human wisdom was evil in itself, but that people refused to use it in the right way.

The Greek word translated as it pleased often refers to a formal decision made by someone in authority. Good News Bible‘s “decided” brings out this meaning.

Good News Bible‘s “so-called” is not in the Greek, but is added to make clear in English that Paul is using the word “foolish” ironically, not in a serious way. Other languages will have different ways to convey irony; for example, “what people call the foolish message we preach.”

As Good News Bible shows, the word that Paul uses here for “preaching” means, not the act of preaching, but its content. So “the … message we preach” (Good News Bible) is a better translation than Revised Standard Version‘s what we preach. Paul is not contrasting the “use of words” with some other kind of action; he is contrasting the “foolish” message about Christ’s death with the so-called “wisdom” of skillful debaters.

The verb believe in a number of languages will require an explicit object. One can say, for example, “believe in him.”

Translators may need to change the order of the clauses in the second sentence. For example, one can restructure this as “Instead, God decided that he would use the so-called ‘foolish’ message that we preach in order to save those who believe in him.”

Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, 2nd edition. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1985/1994. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .