Now you are Christ's body, and individually parts of it.

For now we are looking at a dim reflection in a mirror, but then we shall see face to face. Now my knowledge is imperfect, but then I shall know as fully as God knows me.

So faith, hope, and love endure. These are the great three, and the greatest of them is love.

I want you all to speak ecstatically, but I especially want you to be inspired to preach. The man who is inspired to preach is more useful than the one who speaks ecstatically??nless he can explain what he says so that it may do the church some good.

So if you in your ecstatic speaking utter words no one can understand, how will people know what you are saying? You will be talking to the empty air!

There are probably ever so many different languages in the world, each with its own meaning.

So if I do not know the meaning of the language, I shall seem to the man who is speaking to be a foreigner, and he will seem to me to be one too.

So since you are ambitious for spiritual endowments, you must try to excel in them in ways that will do good to the church.

For if you utter blessings in ecstatic speech, how is an ordinary man to say Amen to your thanksgiving? For he does not know what you are saying.

But in public worship I would rather say five words with my understanding so as to instruct others also than ten thousand words in an ecstasy.

So this ecstatic speaking is meant as a sign not to those who believe but to unbelievers, but inspired preaching is a sign not to unbelievers but to those who believe.

Hence, if the whole church assembles and they all speak ecstatically, and ordinary people or unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are crazy?

For in this way you can all preach one after another, as you are inspired to, so that everyone may be instructed and stimulated,

Did God's message start from you Corinthians? Or are you the only people it has reached?

So, my brothers, set your hearts on being inspired to preach, and yet do not hinder people from speaking ecstatically.

For I am the least important of the apostles, and am not fit to be called an apostle, because I once persecuted God's church.

But by God's favor I have become what I am, and the favor he showed me has not gone for nothing, but I have worked harder than any of them, although it was not really I but the favor God showed me.

Now if what we preach about Christ is that he was raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no such thing as a resurrection of the dead?

For just as because of their relation to Adam all men die, so because of their relation to Christ they will all be brought to life again.

But each in his own turn; Christ first, and then at Christ's coming those who belong to him.

for everything is to be reduced to subjection and put under Christ's feet. But when it says that everything is subject to him, he is evidently excepted who reduced it all to subjection to him.

And when everything is reduced to subjection to him, then the Son himself will also become subject to him who has reduced everything to subjection to him, so that God may be everything to everyone.

Return to your sober sense as you ought, and stop sinning, for some of you are utterly ignorant about God. To your shame I say so.

But someone will say, "How can the dead rise? What kind of a body will they have when they come back?"

You foolish man, the very seed you sow never comes to life without dying first;

and when you sow it, it has not the form it is going to have, but is a naked kernel, perhaps of wheat or something else;

and God gives it just such a form as he pleases, so that each kind of seed has a form of its own.

It is so with the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in decay, it is raised free from decay.

About the collection for God's people, I want you to do as I told the churches of Galatia to do.

On the first of every week each of you is to put aside and store up whatever he gains, so that money will not have to be collected after I come.

and I will probably stay some time with you, or even pass the winter, so that you may start me off for wherever I may be going.

For I do not want to see you now just in passing, for I hope to spend some time with you if the Lord permits it.

If Timothy reaches you, put him at his ease among you, for he is devoted to the Lord's work, just as I am.

So no one is to slight him. But see him off cordially when he comes back to me, for I am expecting him with the other brothers.

Now I urge you, brothers??ou know that the family of Stephanas was the first to be converted in Greece, and that they have devoted themselves to the service of God's people??16 I want you to enlist under such leaders, and under anyone who joins with you and works hard.