Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks

4 So Apollos and I should be looked upon as Christ’s servants who distribute God’s blessings by explaining God’s secrets. ² Now the most important thing about a servant is that he does just what his master tells him to. ³ What about me? Have I been a good servant? Well, I don’t worry over what you think about this or what anyone else thinks. I don’t even trust my own judgment on this point. ⁴ My conscience is clear, but even that isn’t final proof. It is the Lord himself who must examine me and decide.

⁵ So be careful not to jump to conclusions before the Lord returns as to whether someone is a good servant or not. When the Lord comes, he will turn on the light so that everyone can see exactly what each one of us is really like, deep down in our hearts. Then everyone will know why we have been doing the Lord’s work. At that time God will give to each one whatever praise is coming to him.

⁶ I have used Apollos and myself as examples to illustrate what I have been saying: that you must not have favorites. You must not be proud of one of God’s teachers more than another. ⁷ What are you so puffed up about? What do you have that God hasn’t given you? And if all you have is from God, why act as though you are so great, and as though you have accomplished something on your own?

⁸ You seem to think you already have all the spiritual food you need. You are full and spiritually contented, rich kings on your thrones, leaving us far behind! I wish you really were already on your thrones, for when that time comes you can be sure that we will be there, too, reigning with you. ⁹ Sometimes I think God has put us apostles at the very end of the line, like prisoners soon to be killed, put on display at the end of a victor’s parade, to be stared at by men and angels alike.

¹⁰ Religion has made us foolish, you say, but of course you are all such wise and sensible Christians! We are weak, but not you! You are well thought of, while we are laughed at. ¹¹ To this very hour we have gone hungry and thirsty, without even enough clothes to keep us warm. We have been kicked around without homes of our own. ¹² We have worked wearily with our hands to earn our living. We have blessed those who cursed us. We have been patient with those who injured us. ¹³ We have replied quietly when evil things have been said about us. Yet right up to the present moment we are like dirt underfoot, like garbage.

¹⁴ I am not writing about these things to make you ashamed, but to warn and counsel you as beloved children. ¹⁵ For although you may have ten thousand others to teach you about Christ, remember that you have only me as your father. For I was the one who brought you to Christ when I preached the Gospel to you. ¹⁶ So I beg you to follow my example and do as I do.

¹⁷ That is the very reason why I am sending Timothy—to help you do this. For he is one of those I won to Christ, a beloved and trustworthy child in the Lord. He will remind you of what I teach in all the churches wherever I go.

¹⁸ I know that some of you will have become proud, thinking that I am afraid to come to deal with you. ¹⁹ But I will come, and soon, if the Lord will let me, and then I’ll find out whether these proud men are just big talkers or whether they really have God’s power. ²⁰ The Kingdom of God is not just talking; it is living by God’s power. ²¹ Which do you choose? Shall I come with punishment and scolding, or shall I come with quiet love and gentleness?

5 Everyone is talking about the terrible thing that has happened there among you, something so evil that even the heathen don’t do it: you have a man in your church who is living in sin with his father’s wife.^{[a] 2} And are you still so conceited, so “spiritual”? Why aren’t you mourning in sorrow and shame and seeing to it that this man is removed from your membership?

^3-4 Although I am not there with you, I have been thinking a lot about this, and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ I have already decided what to do, just as though I were there. You are to call a meeting of the church—and the power of the Lord Jesus will be with you as you meet, and I will be there in spirit— ⁵ and cast out this man from the fellowship of the church and into Satan’s hands, to punish him, in the hope that his soul will be saved when our Lord Jesus Christ returns.

⁶ What a terrible thing it is that you are boasting about your purity and yet you let this sort of thing go on. Don’t you realize that if even one person is allowed to go on sinning, soon all will be affected? ⁷ Remove this evil cancer—this wicked person—from among you, so that you can stay pure. Christ, God’s Lamb, has been slain for us. ⁸ So let us feast upon him and grow strong in the Christian life, leaving entirely behind us the cancerous old life with all its hatreds and wickedness. Let us feast instead upon the pure bread of honor and sincerity and truth.

⁹ When I wrote to you before I said not to mix with evil people. ¹⁰ But when I said that I wasn’t talking about unbelievers who live in sexual sin or are greedy cheats and thieves and idol worshipers. For you can’t live in this world without being with people like that. ¹¹ What I meant was that you are not to keep company with anyone who claims to be a brother Christian but indulges in sexual sins, or is greedy, or is a swindler, or worships idols, or is a drunkard, or abusive. Don’t even eat lunch with such a person.

¹² It isn’t our job to judge outsiders. But it certainly is our job to judge and deal strongly with those who are members of the church and who are sinning in these ways. ¹³ God alone is the Judge of those on the outside. But you yourselves must deal with this man and put him out of your church.

6 How is it that when you have something against another Christian, you “go to law” and ask a heathen court to decide the matter instead of taking it to other Christians to decide which of you is right? ² Don’t you know that someday we Christians are going to judge and govern the world? So why can’t you decide even these little things among yourselves? ³ Don’t you realize that we Christians will judge and reward the very angels in heaven? So you should be able to decide your problems down here on earth easily enough. ⁴ Why then go to outside judges who are not even Christians?^{[b] 5} I am trying to make you ashamed. Isn’t there anyone in all the church who is wise enough to decide these arguments? ⁶ But, instead, one Christian sues another and accuses his Christian brother in front of unbelievers.

⁷ To have such lawsuits at all is a real defeat for you as Christians. Why not just accept mistreatment and leave it at that? It would be far more honoring to the Lord to let yourselves be cheated. ⁸ But, instead, you yourselves are the ones who do wrong, cheating others, even your own brothers.

^9-10 Don’t you know that those doing such things have no share in the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who live immoral lives, who are idol worshipers, adulterers or homosexuals—will have no share in his Kingdom. Neither will thieves or greedy people, drunkards, slanderers, or robbers. ¹¹ There was a time when some of you were just like that but now your sins are washed away, and you are set apart for God; and he has accepted you because of what the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God have done for you.

¹² I can do anything I want to if Christ has not said no,^[c] but some of these things aren’t good for me. Even if I am allowed to do them, I’ll refuse to if I think they might get such a grip on me that I can’t easily stop when I want to. ¹³ For instance, take the matter of eating. God has given us an appetite for food and stomachs to digest it. But that doesn’t mean we should eat more than we need. Don’t think of eating as important because someday God will do away with both stomachs and food.

But sexual sin is never right: our bodies were not made for that but for the Lord, and the Lord wants to fill our bodies with himself. ¹⁴ And God is going to raise our bodies from the dead by his power just as he raised up the Lord Jesus Christ. ¹⁵ Don’t you realize that your bodies are actually parts and members of Christ? So should I take part of Christ and join him to a prostitute? Never! ¹⁶ And don’t you know that if a man joins himself to a prostitute she becomes a part of him and he becomes a part of her? For God tells us in the Scripture that in his sight the two become one person. ¹⁷ But if you give yourself to the Lord, you and Christ are joined together as one person.

¹⁸ That is why I say to run from sex sin. No other sin affects the body as this one does. When you sin this sin it is against your own body. ¹⁹ Haven’t you yet learned that your body is the home of the Holy Spirit God gave you, and that he lives within you? Your own body does not belong to you. ²⁰ For God has bought you with a great price. So use every part of your body to give glory back to God because he owns it.