1 Corinthians 4-7

New Life Version

Servants of Christ

4 Think of us as servants who are owned by Christ. It is our job to share the secrets of God. ² A servant must be faithful to his owner. This is expected of him. ³ It is not the most important thing to me what you or any other people think of me. Even what I think of myself does not mean much. ⁴ As for me, my heart tells me I am not guilty of anything. But that does not prove I am free from guilt. It is the Lord Who looks into my life and says what is wrong. ⁵ Do not be quick to say who is right or wrong. Wait until the Lord comes. He will bring into the light the things that are hidden in men’s hearts. He will show why men have done these things. Every man will receive from God the thanks he should have.

⁶ Christian brothers, I have used Apollos and myself to show you what I am talking about. This is to help you so you will not think more of men than what God’s Word will allow. Never think more of one of God’s servants than another. ⁷ Who made you better than your brother? Or what do you have that has not been given to you? If God has given you everything, why do you have pride? Why do you act as if He did not give it to you? ⁸ You are full. You are rich. You live like kings and we do not. I wish you were kings and we could be leaders with you. ⁹ I think that God has made a show of us missionaries. We are the last and the least among men. We are like men waiting to be put to death. The whole world, men and angels alike, are watching us. ¹⁰ We are thought of as fools because of Christ. But you are thought of as wise Christians! We are weak. You are strong. People respect you. They have no respect for us. ¹¹ To this hour we are hungry and thirsty, and our clothes are worn out. People hurt us. We have no homes.

¹² We work with our hands to make a living. We speak kind words to those who speak against us. When people hurt us, we say nothing. ¹³ When people say bad things about us, we answer with kind words. People think of us as dirt that is worth nothing and as the worst thing on earth to this day.

Follow Paul’s Way of Life

¹⁴ I do not write these things to shame you. I am doing this to help you know what you should do. You are my much-loved children. ¹⁵ You may have 10,000 Christian teachers. But remember, I am the only father you have. You became Christians when I preached the Good News to you. ¹⁶ So I ask you with all my heart to follow the way I live. ¹⁷ For this reason I have sent Timothy to you. He is my much-loved child and a faithful Christian. He will tell you how I act as a Christian. This is the kind of life I teach in the churches wherever I go.

¹⁸ Some of you are full of pride. You think that I am not coming to visit you. ¹⁹ If the Lord wants me to, I will come soon. I will find out when I come if these proud people have God’s power, or if they just use a lot of big words. ²⁰ The holy nation of God is not made up of words. It is made up of power. ²¹ What do you want? Do you want me to come with a stick to whip you? Or do you want me to come with love and a gentle spirit?

Sin in the Church

5 Someone has told me about a sex sin among you. It is so bad that even the people who do not know God would not do it. I have been told that one of the men is living with his father’s wife as if she were his wife. ² Instead of being sorry, you are proud of yourselves. The man who is living like that should be sent away from you. ³ I am far from you. Even if I am not there, my spirit is with you. I have already said that the man is guilty of this sin. I am saying this as if I were there with you. ⁴ Call a meeting of the church. I will be with you in spirit. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by His power, ⁵ hand this person over to the devil. His body is to be destroyed so his spirit may be saved on the day the Lord comes again.

⁶ It is not good for you to be proud of the way things are going in your church. You know a little yeast makes the whole loaf of bread rise. ⁷ Clean out the old yeast. Then you will be new bread with none of the old yeast in you. The Jews killed lambs when they left Egypt. Christ is our lamb. He has already been killed as a gift on the altar to God for us. ⁸ Bread with yeast in it is like being full of sin and hate. Let us eat this supper together with bread that has no yeast in it. This bread is pure and true.

⁹ I told you in my letter not to keep on being with people who do any kind of sex sins. ¹⁰ I was not talking about people doing sex sins who are bad people of this world. I was not talking about people of this world who always want to get more or those who get things in a wrong way or those who worship false gods. To get away from people like that you would have to leave this world! ¹¹ What I wrote was that you should not keep on being with a person who calls himself a Christian if he does any kind of sex sins. You should not even eat with a person who says he is a Christian but always wants to get more of everything or uses bad language or who gets drunk or gets things in a wrong way. ¹² It is not for me to judge those outside the church. You are to judge those who belong to the church. ¹³ God will judge those outside the church. So you must put that sinful person out of your church.

Going to Court Against Christians

6 Why do you go to court when you have something against another Christian? You are asking people who are not Christians to judge who is guilty. You should go to those who belong to Christ and ask them. ² Did you not know that those who belong to Christ will someday judge this world? If you judge the people of the world as guilty, are you not able to do this in small things? ³ Did you not know that we are to judge angels? So you should be able to take care of your problem here in this world without any trouble.

⁴ When you have things to decide about this life, why do you go to men in courts who are not even Christians? ⁵ You should be ashamed! Is it true that there is not one person wise enough in your church to decide who is right when people argue? ⁶ Instead, one Christian takes another Christian to court. And that court is made up of people who are not Christians! ⁷ This shows you are wrong when you have to go to court against each other. Would it not be better to let someone do something against you that is wrong? Would it not be better to let them rob you? ⁸ Instead, you rob and do wrong to other Christians.

The Body Is to Be Holy

⁹ Do you not know that sinful men will have no place in the holy nation of God? Do not be fooled. A person who does sex sins, or who worships false gods, or who is not faithful in marriage, or men who act like women, or people who do sex sins with their own sex, will have no place in the holy nation of God. ¹⁰ Also those who steal, or those who always want to get more of everything, or who get drunk, or who say bad things about others, or take things that are not theirs, will have no place in the holy nation of God. ¹¹ Some of you were like that. But now your sins are washed away. You were set apart for God-like living to do His work. You were made right with God through our Lord Jesus Christ by the Spirit of our God.

¹² I am allowed to do all things, but not everything is good for me to do! Even if I am free to do all things, I will not do them if I think it would be hard for me to stop when I know I should. ¹³ Food was meant for the stomach. The stomach needs food, but God will bring to an end both food and the stomach. The body was not meant for sex sins. It was meant to work for the Lord. The Lord is for our body. ¹⁴ God raised the Lord from death. He will raise us from death by His power also.

The Body Belongs to the Lord

¹⁵ Do you not know that your bodies are a part of Christ Himself? Am I to take a part of Christ and make it a part of a woman who sells the use of her body? No! Never! ¹⁶ Do you not know that a man who joins himself to a woman who sells the use of her body becomes a part of her? The Holy Writings say, “The two will become one.” ¹⁷ But if you join yourself to the Lord, you are one with Him in spirit.

¹⁸ Have nothing to do with sex sins! Any other sin that a man does, does not hurt his own body. But the man who does a sex sin sins against his own body. ¹⁹ Do you not know that your body is a house of God where the Holy Spirit lives? God gave you His Holy Spirit. Now you belong to God. You do not belong to yourselves. ²⁰ God bought you with a great price. So honor God with your body. You belong to Him.

How a Husband and Wife Should Live

7 You asked me some questions in your letter. This is my answer. It is good if a man does not get married. ² But because of being tempted to sex sins, each man should get married and have his own wife. Each woman should get married and have her own husband. ³ The husband should please his wife as a husband. The wife should please her husband as a wife. ⁴ The wife is not the boss of her own body. It belongs to the husband. And in the same way, the husband is not the boss of his own body. It belongs to the wife.

⁵ Do not keep from each other that which belongs to each other in marriage unless you agree for awhile so you can use your time to pray. Then come together again or the devil will tempt you to do that which you know you should not do.

⁶ This is what I think. I am not saying you must do it. ⁷ I wish everyone were as I am, but each has his own gift from God. One has one gift. Another has another gift.

⁸ This is what I say to those who are not married and to women whose husbands have died. It is good if you do not get married. I am not married. ⁹ But if you are not able to keep from doing that which you know is wrong, get married. It is better to get married than to have such strong sex desires.

¹⁰ I have this to say to those who are married. These words are from the Lord. A wife should not leave her husband, ¹¹ but if she does leave him, she should not get married to another man. It would be better for her to go back to her husband. The husband should not divorce his wife. ¹² I have this to say. These words are not from the Lord. If a Christian husband has a wife who is not a Christian, and she wants to live with him, he must not divorce her. ¹³ If a Christian wife has a husband who is not a Christian, and he wants to live with her, she must not divorce him. ¹⁴ The husband who is not a Christian is set apart from the sin of the world because of his Christian wife. The wife who is not a Christian is set apart from the sin of the world because of her Christian husband. In this way, the lives of the children are not unclean because of sin, they are clean. ¹⁵ If the one who is not a Christian wants to leave, let that one go. The Christian husband or wife should not try to make the other one stay. God wants you to live in peace. ¹⁶ Christian wife, how do you know you will not help your husband to become a Christian? Or Christian husband, how do you know you will not help your wife to become a Christian?

Stay as You Were When God Chose You

¹⁷ Everyone should live the life the Lord gave to him. He should live as he was when he became a Christian. This is what I teach in all the churches. ¹⁸ If a man became a Christian after he had gone through the religious act of becoming a Jew, he should do nothing about it. If a man became a Christian before, he should not go through the religious act of becoming a Jew. ¹⁹ If it is done or not done, it means nothing. What is important is to obey God’s Word. ²⁰ Everyone should stay the same way he was when he became a Christian. ²¹ Were you a servant who was owned by someone when you became a Christian? Do not worry about it. But if you are able to become free, do that. ²² A servant who is owned by someone and who has become a Christian is the Lord’s free man. A free man who has become a Christian is a servant owned by Christ. ²³ He paid a great price for you when He bought you. Do not let yourselves become servants owned by men. ²⁴ Christian brothers, each one should stay as he was when he became a Christian.

²⁵ I have no word from the Lord about women or men who have never been married. I will tell you what I think. You can trust me because the Lord has given me His loving-kindness. ²⁶ I think, because of the troubles that are coming, it is a good thing for a person not to get married. ²⁷ Are you married to a wife? Do not try to get a divorce. If you are not married, do not look for a wife. ²⁸ If you do get married, you have not sinned. If a woman who is not married gets married, it is no sin. But being married will add problems. I would like to have you free from such problems.

²⁹ I mean this, Christian brothers. The time is short. A married man should use his time as if he did not have a wife. ³⁰ Those who have sorrow should keep on working as if they had no sorrow. Those who have joy should keep on working as if there was no time for joy. Those who buy should have no time to get joy from what they have. ³¹ While you live in this world, live as if the world has no hold on you. The way of this world will soon be gone.

³² I want you to be free from the cares of this world. The man who is not married can spend his time working for the Lord and pleasing Him. ³³ The man who is married cares for the things of the world. He wants to please his wife. ³⁴ Married women and women who have never been married are different. The woman who has never been married can spend her time working for the Lord. She wants to please the Lord with her body and spirit. The woman who is married cares for the things of the world. She wants to please her husband. ³⁵ I am saying these things to help you. I am not trying to keep you from getting married. I want you to do what is best. You should work for Him without other things taking your time.

³⁶ If a man and woman expect to get married, and he thinks his desires to marry her are getting too strong, and she is getting older, they should get married. It is no sin. ³⁷ But if a man has the power to keep from getting married and knows in his mind that he should not, he is wise if he does not get married. ³⁸ The man who gets married does well, but the man who does not get married does better.

³⁹ A wife is not free as long as her husband lives. If her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wants, if he is a Christian. ⁴⁰ I think she will be much more happy if she does not get married again. This is what I think. I believe it is what the Holy Spirit is saying.