Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel. And to preach it with no fine rhetoric, lest the cross of Christ should lose its power!

Sage, scribe, critic of this world, where are they all? Has not God stultified the wisdom of the world?

Why, look at your own ranks, my brothers; not many wise men (that is, judged by human standards), not many leading men, not many of good birth, have been called!

God has chosen what is mean and despised in the world ??things which are not, to put down things that are;

Thus when I came to you, my brothers, I did not come to proclaim to you God's secret purpose with any elaborate words or wisdom.

what I said, what I preached, did not rest on the plausible arguments of 'wisdom' but on the proof supplied by the Spirit and its power,

so that your faith might not rest on any human 'wisdom' but on the power of God.

We do discuss 'wisdom' with those who are mature; only it is not the wisdom of this world or of the dethroned Powers who rule this world,

Now we have received the Spirit ??not the spirit of the world but the Spirit that comes from God, that we may understand what God bestows upon us.

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.

I fed you with milk, not with solid food. You were not able for solid food, and you are not able even now;

you are still worldly. For with jealousy and quarrels in your midst, are you not worldly, are you not behaving like ordinary men?

Do you not know you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells within you?

So you must not boast about men. For all belongs to you;

It matters very little to me that you or any human court should cross-question me on this point. I do not even cross-question myself;

for, although I am not conscious of having anything against me, that does not clear me. It is the Lord who cross-questions me on the matter.

So do not criticize at all; the hour of reckoning has still to come, when the Lord will come to bring dark secrets to the light and to reveal life's inner aims and motives. Then each of us will get his meed of praise from God.

Now I have applied what has been said above to myself and Apollos, to teach you ... that you are not to be puffed up with rivalry over one teacher as against another.

Who singles you out, my brother? What do you possess that has not been given you? And if it was given you, why do you boast as if it had been gained, not given?

I do not write this to make you feel ashamed, but to instruct you as beloved children of mine.

You may have thousands to superintend you in Christ, but you have not more than one father. It was I who in Christ Jesus became your father by means of the gospel.

Certain individuals have got puffed up, have they, as if I were not coming myself?

I will come to you before long, if the Lord wills, and then I will find out from these puffed up creatures not what their talk but what their power amounts to.

For God's Reign does not show itself in talk but in power.

Your boasting is no credit to you. Do you not know that a morsel of dough will leaven the whole lump?

So let us celebrate our festival, not with any old leaven, not with vice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of innocence and integrity.

In my letter I wrote that you were not to associate with the immoral.

I did not mean you were literally to avoid contact with the immoral in this world, with the lustful and the thievish, or with idolaters; in that case you would have to leave the world altogether.

What I now write is that you are not to associate with any so-called brother who is immoral or lustful or idolatrous or given to abuse or drink or robbery. Associate with him! Do not even eat with him!

Do you not know the saints are to manage the world? If the world is to come under your jurisdiction, are you incompetent to adjudicate upon trifles?

Do you not know we are to manage angels, let alone mundane issues?

I say this to put you to shame. Has it come to this, that there is not a single wise man among you who could decide a dispute between members of the brotherhood,

Even to have law-suits with one another is in itself evidence of defeat. Why not rather let yourselves be wronged? Why not rather let yourselves be defrauded?

What! do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the Realm of God? Make no mistake about it; neither the immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor catamites nor sodomites

'All things are lawful for me'? Yes, but not all are good for me. 'All things are lawful for me'? Yes, but I am not going to let anything master me.

'Food is meant for the stomach, and the stomach for food'? Yes, and God will do away with the one and the other. The body is not meant for immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body;

Do you not know your bodies are members of Christ? Am I to take Christ's members and devote them to a harlot? Never!

Do you not know that he who joins himself to a harlot is one with her in body (for the pair, it is said, shall become one flesh),

Do you not know your body is the temple of the holy Spirit within you ??the Spirit you have received from God? You are not your own,

Do not withhold sexual intercourse from one another, unless you agree to do so for a time in order to devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again. You must not let Satan tempt you through incontinence.

But what I have just said is by way of concession, not command.

For married people these are my instructions (and they are the Lord's, not mine). A wife is not to separate from her husband ??11 if she has separated, she must either remain single or be reconciled to him ??and a husband must not put away his wife.

To other people I would say (not the Lord): ??if any brother has a wife who is not a believer, and if she consents to live with him, he must not put her away;

and if any wife has a husband who is not a believer, and if he consents to live with her, she must not put her husband away.

(Should the unbelieving partner be determined to separate, however, separation let it be; in such cases the Christian brother or sister is not tied to marriage.) It is to a life of peace that God has called us.

O wife, how do you know you may not save your husband? O husband, how do you know you may not save your wife?

Was a man circumcised at the time he was called? Then he is not to efface the marks of it. Has any man been called when he was uncircumcised? Then he is not to get circumcised.

(for you were bought for a price; you must not turn slaves to any man).

Are you tied to a wife? Never try to untie the knot. Are you free? Never try to get married.

let mourners live as if they were not mourning, let the joyful live as if they had no joy, let buyers live as if they had no hold on their goods,

let those who mix in the world live as if they were not engrossed in it, for the present phase of things is passing away.

I am saying this in your own interests. Not that I want to restrict your freedom. It is only to secure decorum and concentration upon a life of devotion to the Lord.

At the same time, if any man considers he is not behaving properly to the maid who is his spiritual bride, if his passions are strong and if it must be so, then let him do what he wants ??let them be married; it is no sin for him.

Thus both are right alike in marrying and in refraining from marriage, but he who does not marry will be found to have done better.

Whoever imagines he has attained to some degree of knowledge, does not possess the true knowledge yet;

But remember, it is not everyone who has this 'knowledge.' Some who have hitherto been accustomed to idols eat the food as food which has been really offered to an idol, and so their weaker conscience is contaminated.

Now mere food will not bring us any nearer to God; if we abstain we do not lose anything, and if we eat we do not gain anything.

But see that the exercise of your right does not prove any stumbling-block to the weak.

Suppose anyone sees you, a person of enlightened mind, reclining at meat inside an idol's temple; will that really 'fortify his weak conscience'? Will it not embolden him to violate his scruples of conscience by eating food that has been offered to idols?

Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the work I have accomplished in the Lord?

Human arguments, you say? But does not Scripture urge the very same?

It is written in the law of Moses, You must not muzzle an ox when he is treading the grain. Is God thinking here about cattle?

If others share this right over you, why not we all the more? We did not avail ourselves of it, you say? No, we do not mind any privations if we can only avoid putting any obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.

Do you not know that as men who perform temple-rites get their food from the temple, and as attendants at the altar get their share of the sacrifices,

Only, I have not availed myself of any of these rights, and I am not writing in order to secure any such provision for myself. I would die sooner than let anyone deprive me of this, my source of pride.

What I am proud of is not the mere preaching of the gospel; that I am constrained to do. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!

To Jews I have become like a Jew, to win over Jews; to those under the Law I have become as one of themselves ??though I am not under the Law myself ??to win over those under the Law;

to those outside the Law I have become like one of themselves ??though I am under Christ's law, not outside God's Law ??to win over those outside the Law;

Do you not know that in a race, though all run, only one man gains the prize? Run so as to win the prize.

Well, I run without swerving; I do not plant my blows upon the empty air ??27 no, I maul and master my body, in case, after preaching to other people, I am disqualified myself.

still with most of them God was not satisfied; they were laid low in the desert.

And you must not be idolaters, like some of them; as it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to make sport.

And you must not murmur, as some of them did ??only to be destroyed by the destroying angel.

The cup of blessing, which we bless, is that not participating in the blood of Christ? The bread we break, is that not participating in the body of Christ?

Look at the rites of Israel. Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar?

No, what I imply is that anything people sacrifice is sacrificed to daemons, not to God. And I do not want you to participate in daemons!

'All things are lawful'? Yes, but not all are good for us. 'All things are lawful'? Yes, but not all are edifying.

Each of us must consult his neighbour's interests, not his own.

But if someone tells you, 'This was sacrificial meat,' then do not eat it; you must consider the man who told you, and also take conscience into account ??29 his conscience, I mean, not your own; for why should one's own freedom be called in question by someone else's conscience?

Such is my own rule, to satisfy all men in all points, aiming not at my own advantage but at the advantage of the greater number ??at their salvation.

If a woman will not veil herself, she should cut off her hair as well. But she ought to veil herself; for it is disgraceful that a woman should have her hair cut off or be shaven.

Man does not require to have a veil on his head, for he represents the likeness and supremacy of God; but woman represents the supremacy of man.

(Man was not made from woman, woman was made from man;

and man was not created for woman, but woman for man.)

(Of course, in the Lord, woman does not exist apart from man, any more than man apart from woman;

But in giving you the following injunction I cannot commend you; for you are the worse, not the better, for assembling together.

What! have you no houses to eat and drink in? Do you think you can show disrespect to the church of God and put the poor to shame? What can I say to you? Commend you? Not for this.

I passed on to you what I received from the Lord himself, namely, that on the night he was betrayed the Lord Jesus took a loaf,

If we only judged our own lives truly, we would not come under the Lord's judgment.

As it is, we are chastened when we are judged by him, so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

and if anyone is hungry let him eat at home. You must not gather, only to incur condemnation. I will give you my instructions upon the other matters when I come.

Why, even the body consists not of one member but of many.

If the foot were to say, 'Because I am not the hand, I do not belong to the body,' that does not make it no part of the body.

If the ear were to say, 'Because I am not the eye, I do not belong to the body,' that does not make it no part of the body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you,' nor again the head to the feet, 'I have no need of you.'

which does not need to be paid to our more decorous parts. Yes, God has tempered the body together, with a special dignity for the inferior parts,

For he who speaks in a 'tongue' addresses God not men; no one understands him; he is talking of divine secrets in the Spirit.

Otherwise, suppose you are blessing God in the Spirit, how is the outsider to say 'Amen' to your thanksgiving? The man does not understand what you are saying!

Your thanksgiving may be all right, but then ??the other man is not edified!

Brothers, do not be children in the sphere of intelligence; in evil be mere infants, but be mature in your intelligence.