For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect.
All Commentaries on 1 Corinthians 1:17 Go To 1 Corinthians 1
Ambrosiaster
AD 400
Because it is a greater thing to preach the gospel than to baptize, Paul says that he was sent to do the former, not the latter. Not everyone who baptizes is competent to preach the gospel, for the words used at baptism are an established formula. When Cornelius became a believer, the apostle Peter gave orders that he should be baptized along with his household, but he did not bother to do it himself when he had his assistants standing by. It was because Christian preaching does not need elaborate refinement of verbal expression that fishers, who were uneducated, were chosen to preach the gospel. In that way the truth of the message would be its own recommendation, and it would not depend on the cleverness or ingenuity of human wisdom. The false apostles were doing just that, and moreover they were omitting the things which the world does not believe, like the virgin birth of Christ and his resurrection from the dead. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
