Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks

4 ¶ Let us reckon men as ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.

² Moreover, it is required in stewards that each one be found faithful.

³ But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by man’s judgment; I do not even judge my own self.

⁴ For although I have nothing on my conscience, yet am I not hereby justified, but he that judges me is the Lord.

⁵ Therefore, judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts; and then shall each one have praise of God.

⁶ And these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes, that in us ye might not learn above that which is written, lest because of one, some of you become puffed up against others.

⁷ ¶ For who makes thee to judge? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, what dost thou glory of, as if thou hadst not received it?

⁸ Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye reign as kings without us, and I wish ye did reign, that we also might reign with you.

⁹ For I think that God has set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death; for we are made a spectacle unto the world and to angels and to men.

¹⁰ We are fools for Christ’s sake, but ye are prudent in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised.

¹¹ Even unto this present hour we both hunger and thirst and are ill clad and are buffeted and have no certain dwelling place

¹² and labour, working with our own hands; being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it;

¹³ being blasphemed, we intreat; we are made as the filth of this world and are the offscouring of all things unto this day.

¹⁴ ¶ I do not write these things to shame you, but to warn you, as to my beloved sons.

¹⁵ For though ye may have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet ye shall not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.

¹⁶ Therefore, I beseech you that ye imitate me.

¹⁷ ¶ For this cause I have sent Timothy unto you, who is my beloved son and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways which are in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every congregation. {Gr. ekklesia – called out ones}

¹⁸ Now some are puffed up as though I will never come to you.

¹⁹ But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord wills, and will know not the words of those who are puffed up, but the virtue.

²⁰ For the kingdom of God is not in words, but in virtue.

²¹ What will ye? Shall I come unto you with a rod or in charity and in the spirit of meekness?

5 ¶ It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.

² And ye are puffed up and have not rather mourned, that he that has done this deed might be taken away from among you.

³ For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, him that has so done this deed.

⁴ In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,

⁵ let such a one be delivered unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

⁶ Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

⁷ ¶ Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ, our passover, is sacrificed for us;

⁸ therefore let us celebrate the feast, not in the old leaven, neither in the leaven of malice and wickedness, but in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

⁹ ¶ I wrote unto you in an epistle not to associate with fornicators,

¹⁰ yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world or with the covetous or extortioners or with idolaters, for then ye would need to go out of the world.

¹¹ But now I have written unto you not to associate with anyone calling himself a brother if he is a fornicator or covetous or an idolater or a railer or a drunkard or an extortioner; with such a one do not even eat.

¹² For why shall I judge those that are without? do ye not judge those that are within?

¹³ But those that are without, God shall judge. Therefore, put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

6 ¶ Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go unto judgment before the unjust, and not before the saints?

² Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?

³ Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more the things that pertain to this life?

⁴ If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set as judges the most humble who are in the congregation. {Gr. ekklesia – called out ones}

⁵ I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brothers?

⁶ But brother goes to judgment against brother, and that before the unbelievers.

⁷ Now therefore there is certainly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather suffer the wrong? why do ye not rather be defrauded?

⁸ But ye do wrong and defraud and do this to your brothers.

⁹ ¶ Know ye not that the unjust shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor homosexuals

¹⁰ nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God.

¹¹ And such were some of you, but now ye are washed, but now ye are sanctified, but now ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and in the Spirit of our God.

¹² ¶ All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient; all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.

¹³ Foods are for the belly, and the belly for foods; but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.

¹⁴ And God, who raised up the Lord, will also raise up us by his own power.

¹⁵ Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot? In no wise.

¹⁶ What? know ye not that he who is joined to the harlot is one body with her? For they shall be, saith he, two in one flesh.

¹⁷ But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.

¹⁸ Flee fornication. Any other sin that a man does is outside the body, but he that commits fornication sins against his own body.

¹⁹ What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom ye have of God, and that ye are not your own?

²⁰ For ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.