The Law is spiritual; we know that. But then I am a creature of the flesh, in the thraldom of sin.

For the interests of the flesh are hostile to God; they do not yield to the law of God (indeed they cannot).

Such was their decision; and yet this is a debt they owe to these people, for if the Gentiles have shared their spiritual blessings, they owe them a debt of aid in material blessings.

But I could not discuss things with you, my brothers, as spiritual persons; I had to address you as worldlings, as mere babes in Christ.

you are still worldly. For with jealousy and quarrels in your midst, are you not worldly, are you not behaving like ordinary men? When one cries, "I belong to Paul," and another, "I belong to Apollos," what are you but men of the world?

If we sowed you the seeds of spiritual good, is it a great matter if we reap your worldly goods?

My proud boast is the testimony of my conscience that holiness and godly sincerity, not worldly cunning but the grace of God, have marked my conduct in the outside world and in particular my relations with you.

Let no one lay down rules for you as he pleases, with regard to fasting and the cult of angels, presuming on his visions and inflated by his sensuous notions,

one who has become a priest by the power of an indissoluble Life and not by the law of an external command;

since they relate merely to food and drink and a variety of ablutions ??outward regulations for the body, that only hold till the period of the New Order.

Beloved, as sojourners and exiles I appeal to you to abstain from the passions of the flesh that wage war upon the soul.