For the one who was called in the Lord as a slave, is the Lord’s freed person; likewise the one who was called as free, is Christ’s slave.

Now concerning virgins, I have no command of the Lord, but I am offering direction as one who by the mercy of the Lord is trustworthy.

But I want you to be free from concern. One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord;

and his interests are divided. The woman who is unmarried, and the virgin, is concerned about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit; but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how she may please her husband.

I say this for your own benefit, not to put a restraint on you, but to promote what is appropriate and to secure undistracted devotion to the Lord.

A wife is bound as long as her husband lives; but if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.

For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords,

yet for us there is only one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.

Paul’s Use of Freedom

Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord?

If I am not an apostle to others, at least I am to you; for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

Do we not have a right to take along a believing wife, even as the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?

So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel.

Nor are we to put the Lord to the test, as some of them did, and were killed by the snakes.

You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.

Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? We are not stronger than He, are we?

for the earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains.

However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman.

Therefore when you come together it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper,

The Lord’s Supper

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when He was betrayed, took bread;

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.

Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy way, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.

But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world.

Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus is accursed”; and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.

And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord.

In the Law it is written: “By men of strange tongues and by the lips of strangers I will speak to this people, and even so they will not listen to Me,” says the Lord.