{For Christ sent me not to baptize} (ou gar apesteilen me
Christos baptizein). The negative ou goes not with the
infinitive, but with apesteilen (from apostell(932c) apostolos,
apostle). {For Christ did not send me to be a baptizer} (present
active infinitive, linear action) like John the Baptist. {But to
preach the gospel} (alla euaggelizesthai). This is Paul's idea
of his mission from Christ, as Christ's apostle, to be {a
gospelizer}. This led, of course, to baptism, as a result, but
Paul usually had it done by others as Peter at Caesarea ordered
the baptism to be done, apparently by the six brethren with him
( Ac 10:48 ). Paul is fond of this late Greek verb from
euaggelion and sometimes uses both verb and substantive as in
 1Co 15:1  "the gospel which I gospelized unto you." {Not in
wisdom of words} (ouk en sophi(8369) logou). Note ou, not m(885c)
(the subjective negative), construed with apesteilen rather
than the infinitive. Not in wisdom of speech (singular).
Preaching was Paul's forte, but it was not as a pretentious
philosopher or professional rhetorician that Paul appeared before
the Corinthians ( 1Co 2:1-5 ). Some who followed Apollos may have
been guilty of a fancy for external show, though Apollos was not
a mere performer and juggler with words. But the Alexandrian
method as in Philo did run to dialectic subtleties and luxuriant
rhetoric (Lightfoot). {Lest the cross of Christ should be made
void} (hina m(8820)ken(9374)h(8869) ho stauros tou Christou). Negative
purpose (hina m(885c)) with first aorist passive subjunctive,
effective aorist, of keno(935c), old verb from kenos, to make
empty. In Paul's preaching the Cross of Christ is the central
theme. Hence Paul did not fall into the snare of too much
emphasis on baptism nor into too little on the death of Christ.
"This expression shows clearly the stress which St. Paul laid on
the death of Christ, not merely as a great moral spectacle, and
so the crowning point of a life of self-renunciation, but as in
itself the ordained instrument of salvation" (Lightfoot).