Quarrels between Christians

6 Perhaps one of you has a quarrel with another Christian. Who should decide which of you is right? You should never ask people who do not know God to decide. No! Instead, you should go to God's people. They should decide. ² It is God's people who will judge all the people in the world one day. You surely know that. Since that is true, you should be able to decide about small quarrels between yourselves. ³ You know that we will judge the angels one day. So we must be able to decide about ordinary things here on earth.

⁴ If you want to decide an ordinary matter like that, what do you do? Sometimes you go to a judge who does not believe in God. You should never do that! The church does not respect people like that. ⁵ I say this so that you will feel ashamed. There is surely a wise person in your group who could decide quarrels between yourselves. ⁶ But instead, some believers among you accuse other believers in front of judges. And those judges are not believers!

⁷ When you accuse each other like that, it shows that you have already failed. It would be better to accept it when other people hurt you. Even if people rob you, it would be better to accept it. ⁸ Instead, you yourselves hurt other people, and you even rob them. And those other people are believers like you!

⁹ People who do wrong things like that will never belong to God's kingdom. You surely know that. Do not think that people like this will receive God's good things: People who have sex in wrong ways. People who worship idols. People who have sex with anyone that they are not married to. Men who have sex with other men. ¹⁰ People who rob other people. People who want many things for themselves. Drunks. People who insult other people. People who deceive other people to take things from them. None of these people will receive the good things of God's kingdom.

¹¹ At one time, some of you were people like that. But God has now made you clean and pure, so that you belong to him. You have become right with God. Our God has done this with the power of his Spirit because you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Use your bodies in a good way

¹² Some of you believers may say, ‘I am free to do anything that I want to do.’ That may be true, but not everything will help you. I could say, ‘I am free to do the things that I want to do.’ Yes, but I will not let anything rule over me.

¹³ Some of you may say, ‘God made food to feed our bodies. That is why people have stomachs. But one day God will destroy both stomachs and food.’ Yes, but the Lord gave our bodies to us. Our bodies belong to the Lord. So you should not use your bodies to have sex in a wrong way.^{[a] 14} God raised the Lord Jesus after he died. And God will use his power to make us alive again too.^[b]

¹⁵ You know that your bodies are parts of Christ's own body. So you must never take your body and make it join with a prostitute's body. That is like you have done it with part of Christ's body. Never let that happen! ¹⁶ Anyone who makes his own body join to a prostitute becomes one body with that prostitute. You should know that. It says in the Bible:

¹⁷ But everyone who is united to the Lord has the same spirit as him. ¹⁸ So never have sex in a wrong way! You may say, ‘If a person does a bad thing, it is not his body that does it.’ But if you have sex in a wrong way, you are doing a bad thing to your own body. ¹⁹ Remember this: Your body is the home of God's Holy Spirit. God gave his Holy Spirit to you and he lives in you. You do not belong to yourselves any longer. ²⁰ God bought you for himself. He paid the price for you. So use your body to show how great God is.^[d]