Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks

The Ministry of the Apostles

4 Let a man so regard us as the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. ² Moreover it is required in stewards that a man 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 myself. ⁴ For I know nothing against myself. Yet I am not justified by this. But He who judges me is the Lord. ⁵ Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time until the Lord comes. He will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will reveal the purposes of the hearts. Then everyone will have commendation from God.

⁶ Brothers, I have figuratively applied these things to myself and to Apollos for your sakes, so that you may learn from us not to think of men above that which is written, and that not one of you would be arrogant for one against another. ⁷ For who makes you differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?

⁸ Now you are full, now you are rich; you have begun reigning as kings without us, and I wish to God you reigned, so that we also might reign with you. ⁹ For I think that God has exhibited us, the apostles, last, as if we were sentenced to death. For we have been made a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men. ¹⁰ We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are honorable, but we are despised. ¹¹ Even to this present hour we both hunger and thirst, and are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless. ¹² We labor, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless. Being persecuted, we endure. ¹³ Being slandered, we encourage. We are made as the filth of the world, and are the refuse of all things to this day.

¹⁴ I do not write these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you. ¹⁵ For if you were to have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers. In Christ Jesus I have become a father to you through the gospel. ¹⁶ So I implore you, be followers of me. ¹⁷ Therefore I have sent Timothy to you. He is my beloved son and is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my ways which are in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church.

¹⁸ Now some are arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. ¹⁹ But I will come to you shortly if the Lord wills. And I will know not only what those who are arrogant are saying, but also their power. ²⁰ For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. ²¹ What do you desire? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and in the spirit of meekness?

Judgment Against Immorality

5 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that a man has his father’s wife. ² But you are arrogant. Instead you should have mourned, so that he who has done this deed might be removed from among you. ³ For indeed, though absent in body but present in spirit, I have already, as if I were present, judged him who has done this deed, ⁴ in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. When you are assembled, along with my spirit, in the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, ⁵ deliver him to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord Jesus.

⁶ Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch? ⁷ Therefore purge out the old yeast, that you may be a new batch, since you are unleavened. For even Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us. ⁸ Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old yeast, nor with the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

⁹ I wrote to you in my letter not to keep company with sexually immoral people. ¹⁰ Yet I did not mean the sexually immoral people of this world, or the covetous and extortioners, or the idolaters, since you would then need to go out of the world. ¹¹ But I have written to you not to keep company with any man who is called a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner. Do not even eat with such a person.

¹² For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? ¹³ But God judges those who are outside. Therefore “put away from among yourselves that wicked person.”^[a]

Going to Law Before Unbelievers

6 Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to the law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? ² Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? ³ Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more the things that pertain to this life? ⁴ If then you have judgments dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint as judges those who are least esteemed in the church? ⁵ I speak to your shame. Is it true that there is not even one wise man among you who shall be able to judge between his brothers? ⁶ But brother goes to the law against brother, and before unbelievers, at that.

⁷ Now therefore it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? ⁸ But you yourselves do wrong and defraud, and do this to your brothers. ⁹ Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals, ¹⁰ nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ Such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, and you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus by the Spirit of our God.

Glorify God in Your Body

¹² “All things are lawful to me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be brought under the power of anything. ¹³ “Food is for the belly, and the belly is for food,” but God will destroy both of them. Now the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. ¹⁴ God has raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His own power. ¹⁵ Do you not know that your bodies are the parts of Christ? Shall I then take the parts of Christ and make them the parts of a harlot? God forbid! ¹⁶ What? Do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For “the two,” He says, “shall become one flesh.”^{[b] 17} But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him.

¹⁸ Escape from sexual immorality. Every sin that a man commits is outside the body. But he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. ¹⁹ What? Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God, and that you are not your own? ²⁰ You were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.