I am writing to God’s church in Corinth, to you who have been called by God to be his own holy people. He made you holy by means of Christ Jesus, just as he did for all people everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.

Through him, God has enriched your church in every way—with all of your eloquent words and all of your knowledge.

He will keep you strong to the end so that you will be free from all blame on the day when our Lord Jesus Christ returns.

So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense.

God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important.

But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means.

Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others.

After all, who is Apollos? Who is Paul? We are only God’s servants through whom you believed the Good News. Each of us did the work the Lord gave us.

Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you?

That’s why I have sent Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord. He will remind you of how I follow Christ Jesus, just as I teach in all the churches wherever I go.

I am saying this to shame you. Isn’t there anyone in all the church who is wise enough to decide these issues?

Avoiding Sexual Sin

You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is good for you. And even though “I am allowed to do anything,” I must not become a slave to anything.

Each of you should continue to live in whatever situation the Lord has placed you, and remain as you were when God first called you. This is my rule for all the churches.

Food Sacrificed to Idols

Now regarding your question about food that has been offered to idols. Yes, we know that “we all have knowledge” about this issue. But while knowledge makes us feel important, it is love that strengthens the church.

Anyone who claims to know all the answers doesn’t really know very much.

So, what about eating meat that has been offered to idols? Well, we all know that an idol is not really a god and that there is only one God.

But for us, There is one God, the Father, by whom all things were created, and for whom we live. And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things were created, and through whom we live.

However, not all believers know this. Some are accustomed to thinking of idols as being real, so when they eat food that has been offered to idols, they think of it as the worship of real gods, and their weak consciences are violated.

What soldier has to pay his own expenses? What farmer plants a vineyard and doesn’t have the right to eat some of its fruit? What shepherd cares for a flock of sheep and isn’t allowed to drink some of the milk?

Even though I am a free man with no master, I have become a slave to all people to bring many to Christ.

All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize.

Lessons from Israel’s Idolatry

I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground.

In the cloud and in the sea, all of them were baptized as followers of Moses.

All of them ate the same spiritual food,

and all of them drank the same spiritual water. For they drank from the spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ.