Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks

Apostles of Christ

4 You should think of us as Christ's servants, who have been put in charge of God's secret truths. ² The one thing required of such servants is that they be faithful to their master. ³ Now, I am not at all concerned about being judged by you or by any human standard; I don't even pass judgment on myself. ^4 (A)My conscience is clear, but that does not prove that I am really innocent. The Lord is the one who passes judgment on me. ⁵ So you should not pass judgment on anyone before the right time comes. Final judgment must wait until the Lord comes; he will bring to light the dark secrets and expose the hidden purposes of people's minds. And then all will receive from God the praise they deserve.

⁶ For your sake, my friends, I have applied all this to Apollos and me, using the two of us as an example, so that you may learn what the saying means, “Observe the proper rules.” None of you should be proud of one person and despise another. ⁷ Who made you superior to others? Didn't God give you everything you have? Well, then, how can you boast, as if what you have were not a gift?

⁸ Do you already have everything you need? Are you already rich? Have you become kings, even though we are not? Well, I wish you really were kings, so that we could be kings together with you. ⁹ For it seems to me that God has given the very last place to us apostles, like people condemned to die in public as a spectacle for the whole world of angels and of human beings. ¹⁰ For Christ's sake we are fools; but you are wise in union with Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! We are despised, but you are honored! ¹¹ To this very moment we go hungry and thirsty; we are clothed in rags; we are beaten; we wander from place to place; ^12 (B)we wear ourselves out with hard work. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure; ¹³ when we are insulted, we answer back with kind words. We are no more than this world's garbage; we are the scum of the earth to this very moment!

¹⁴ I write this to you, not because I want to make you feel ashamed, but to instruct you as my own dear children. ¹⁵ For even if you have ten thousand guardians in your Christian life, you have only one father. For in your life in union with Christ Jesus I have become your father by bringing the Good News to you. ^16 (C)I beg you, then, to follow my example. ¹⁷ For this purpose I am sending to you Timothy, who is my own dear and faithful son in the Christian life. He will remind you of the principles which I follow in the new life in union with Christ Jesus and which I teach in all the churches everywhere.

¹⁸ Some of you have become proud because you have thought that I would not be coming to visit you. ¹⁹ If the Lord is willing, however, I will come to you soon, and then I will find out for myself the power which these proud people have, and not just what they say. ²⁰ For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of words but of power. ²¹ Which do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a whip, or in a spirit of love and gentleness?

Immorality in the Church

5 ^(D)Now, it is actually being said that there is sexual immorality among you so terrible that not even the heathen would be guilty of it. I am told that a man is sleeping with his stepmother! ² How, then, can you be proud? On the contrary, you should be filled with sadness, and the man who has done such a thing should be expelled from your fellowship. ^3-4 And even though I am far away from you in body, still I am there with you in spirit; and as though I were there with you, I have in the name of our Lord Jesus already passed judgment on the man who has done this terrible thing. As you meet together, and I meet with you in my spirit, by the power of our Lord Jesus present with us, ⁵ you are to hand this man over to Satan for his body to be destroyed, so that his spirit may be saved in the Day of the Lord.

^6 (E)It is not right for you to be proud! You know the saying, “A little bit of yeast makes the whole batch of dough rise.” ^7 (F)You must remove the old yeast of sin so that you will be entirely pure. Then you will be like a new batch of dough without any yeast, as indeed I know you actually are. For our Passover Festival is ready, now that Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. ^8 (G)Let us celebrate our Passover, then, not with bread having the old yeast of sin and wickedness, but with the bread that has no yeast, the bread of purity and truth.

⁹ In the letter that I wrote you I told you not to associate with immoral people. ¹⁰ Now I did not mean pagans who are immoral or greedy or are thieves, or who worship idols. To avoid them you would have to get out of the world completely. ¹¹ What I meant was that you should not associate with a person who calls himself a believer but is immoral or greedy or worships idols or is a slanderer or a drunkard or a thief. Don't even sit down to eat with such a person.

^12-13 (H)After all, it is none of my business to judge outsiders. God will judge them. But should you not judge the members of your own fellowship? As the scripture says, “Remove the evil person from your group.”

Lawsuits against Fellow Christians

6 If any of you have a dispute with another Christian, how dare you go before heathen judges instead of letting God's people settle the matter? ² Don't you know that God's people will judge the world? Well, then, if you are to judge the world, aren't you capable of judging small matters? ³ Do you not know that we shall judge the angels? How much more, then, the things of this life! ⁴ If such matters come up, are you going to take them to be settled by people who have no standing in the church? ⁵ Shame on you! Surely there is at least one wise person in your fellowship who can settle a dispute between fellow Christians. ⁶ Instead, one Christian goes to court against another and lets unbelievers judge the case!

⁷ The very fact that you have legal disputes among yourselves shows that you have failed completely. Would it not be better for you to be wronged? Would it not be better for you to be robbed? ⁸ Instead, you yourselves wrong one another and rob one another, even other believers! ⁹ Surely you know that the wicked will not possess God's Kingdom. Do not fool yourselves; people who are immoral or who worship idols or are adulterers or homosexual perverts ¹⁰ or who steal or are greedy or are drunkards or who slander others or are thieves—none of these will possess God's Kingdom. ¹¹ Some of you were like that. But you have been purified from sin; you have been dedicated to God; you have been put right with God by the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Use Your Bodies for God's Glory

^12 (I)Someone will say, “I am allowed to do anything.” Yes; but not everything is good for you. I could say that I am allowed to do anything, but I am not going to let anything make me its slave. ¹³ Someone else will say, “Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food.” Yes; but God will put an end to both. The body is not to be used for sexual immorality, but to serve the Lord; and the Lord provides for the body. ¹⁴ God raised the Lord from death, and he will also raise us by his power.

¹⁵ You know that your bodies are parts of the body of Christ. Shall I take a part of Christ's body and make it part of the body of a prostitute? Impossible! ^16 (J)Or perhaps you don't know that the man who joins his body to a prostitute becomes physically one with her? The scripture says quite plainly, “The two will become one body.” ¹⁷ But he who joins himself to the Lord becomes spiritually one with him.

¹⁸ Avoid immorality. Any other sin a man commits does not affect his body; but the man who is guilty of sexual immorality sins against his own body. ^19 (K)Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and who was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourselves but to God; ²⁰ he bought you for a price. So use your bodies for God's glory.