Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks

Judgment then rather than now

4 This is how we should be thought of: as servants of the Messiah, and household managers for God’s mysteries. ² And this is what follows: the main requirement for a manager is to be trustworthy. ³ Having said that, I regard it as a matter of minimal concern to think that I should be interrogated by you, or indeed by any human court. I don’t even interrogate myself. ⁴ I don’t actually know of anything that stands against me, but that isn’t what vindicates me; it’s the Lord who interrogates me.

⁵ So don’t pass judgment on anything before the time when the Lord comes! He will bring to light the secrets of darkness, and will lay bare the intentions of the heart. Then everyone will receive praise—from God.

Apostles on display

⁶ I have applied all this to myself and Apollos because of you, my dear family, so that you may learn from us, as the saying goes, not to go beyond what the Bible says—so that nobody gets puffed up in favor of one person and against another.

⁷ Who is going to concede that you are special, after all? What have you got that you didn’t receive? Well then, if you received it, why boast as if you didn’t? ⁸ Do you really suppose you’ve already had all the food you need? Do you think you’ve already become rich? Do you think you’ve already been crowned as royalty, leaving us behind? I wish you really were already reigning, so that we could reign alongside you!

⁹ This is how I look at it, you see: God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like people sentenced to death. We have become a public show for the world, for angels and humans alike. ¹⁰ We are fools because of the Messiah, but you are wise in the Messiah! We are weak, but you are strong! You are celebrated, we are nobodies! ¹¹ Yes, right up to the present moment we go hungry and thirsty; we are badly clothed, roughly treated, with no home to call our own. ¹² What’s more, we work hard, doing manual labor. When we are insulted, we give back blessings. When we are persecuted, we put up with it. ¹³ When we are slandered, we speak gently in return. To this day we have become like the rubbish of the world, fit only to be scraped off the plate and thrown away with everything else.

Puffed up or powerful?

¹⁴ I’m not writing this to make you ashamed! I am simply treating you as dear children, and putting you straight. ¹⁵ You’ve got a thousand babysitters in Christ, I know, but you haven’t got many fathers—because I became your father in the Messiah, Jesus, through the gospel.

¹⁶ So let me appeal to you: copy me! ¹⁷ That’s why I have sent Timothy to you; he’s my child in the Lord, and I love him and trust him. He will remind you how I conduct myself in the Messiah Jesus, just as I teach everywhere, in every assembly.

¹⁸ Some people are getting puffed up, as though I wasn’t going to come to you. ¹⁹ But I will come to you quickly, if the Lord wants it that way; and then I’ll find out, not what these puffed-up people are saying, but how powerful they are. ²⁰ The kingdom of God, you see, isn’t about talk—it’s about power. ²¹ What d’you want, then? Shall I come to you with a big stick, or with love, and in a gentle spirit?

Scandal and judgment

5 Everybody’s talking about the sex scandal that’s going on in your community, not least because it’s a kind of immorality that even the pagans don’t practice! Well I never—a man taking his father’s wife! ² And you’re puffed up! Why aren’t you in mourning? Why aren’t you getting rid of the person who’s done such a thing?

³ Let me tell you what I’ve already done. I may be away from you physically, but I’m present in the spirit; and I’ve already passed judgment, as though I was there with you, on the person who has behaved in this way. ⁴ When you are assembled together in the name of our Lord Jesus, and my spirit is there too with the power of our Lord Jesus, ⁵ you must hand over such a person to the satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord Jesus.

Get rid of the “leaven”!

⁶ Your boasting is no good. Don’t you know that a little leaven works its way through the whole lump of dough? ⁷ Cleanse out the old leaven, so that you can be a new lump, the leaven-free lump you really are. It’s Passover-time, you see, and our Passover lamb—the Messiah, I mean—has already been sacrificed! ⁸ What we now have to do is to keep the festival properly: none of the leaven of the old life, and none of the leaven of depravity and wickedness, either. What we need is leaven-free bread, and that means sincerity and truth.

⁹ I wrote to you in the previous letter not to become associated with immoral people. ¹⁰ I didn’t (of course) mean immoral people in the world at large, or greedy people, or thieves, or idolaters. To avoid them, you’d have to remove yourselves from the world altogether! ¹¹ No; I was referring to people who call themselves Christians but who are immoral, or greedy, or idolaters, or blasphemers, or drunkards or robbers. You shouldn’t associate with them; you shouldn’t even eat with a person like that. ¹² Why should I worry about judging people outside? It’s the people inside you should judge, isn’t it? ¹³ God judges the people outside. “Drive out the wicked person from your company.”

Lawsuits in the church?

6 Can it really be the case that one of you dares to go to law against a neighbor, to be tried before unjust people, and not before God’s people? ² Don’t you know that God’s people will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you really incompetent to try smaller matters? ³ Don’t you know that we shall be judging angels? Why not then also matters to do with ordinary life? ⁴ So if you have lawsuits about ordinary matters, are you actually going to appoint as judges people whom the church despises? ⁵ I’m saying this to bring shame on you. Is it really true that there is no wise person among you who is able to decide between one Christian and another? ⁶ But one Christian is being taken to court by another, and before unbelievers at that!

⁷ Actually, to have lawsuits with one another at all represents a major setback for you. Why not rather let yourselves be wronged? Why not rather put up with loss? ⁸ But you yourselves are wronging and defrauding people, and fellow Christians at that!

Inheriting God’s kingdom—or not

⁹ Don’t you know that the unjust will not inherit God’s kingdom? Don’t be deceived! Neither immoral people, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor practicing homosexuals of whichever sort, ¹⁰ nor thieves, nor greedy people, nor drunkards, nor abusive talkers, nor robbers will inherit God’s kingdom. ¹¹ That, of course, is what some of you were! But you were washed clean; you were made holy; you were put back to rights—in the name of the Lord, Messiah Jesus, and in the spirit of our God.

What is the body for?

¹² “Everything is lawful for me”—but not everything is helpful! “Everything is lawful for me”—but I’m not going to let anything give me orders! ¹³ “Food for the stomach, and the stomach for food, and God will destroy the one and the other”—but the body is not meant for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. ¹⁴ What’s more, God raised the Lord; and he will raise us, too, through his power.

¹⁵ Don’t you know that your bodies are members of the Messiah? Shall I then take the members of the Messiah and make them members of a prostitute? Of course not! ¹⁶ Or don’t you know that anyone who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? “The two shall become one flesh”—that’s what it says. ¹⁷ But the one who joins himself to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.

¹⁸ Run away from immorality. Every sin that it’s possible for someone to commit happens outside the body; but immorality involves sinning against your own body. ¹⁹ Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the holy spirit within you, the spirit God gave you, so that you don’t belong to yourselves? ²⁰ You were quite an expensive purchase! So glorify God in your body.