spiritual blessing and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

so as to keep anyone from saying that you were baptized in my name.

rather, we are setting forth a wisdom that came from God, once a covered secret but now uncovered, which God marked off as His plan for bringing us to glory.

Now we have not received the spirit that belongs to the world but the Spirit that comes from God, that we may get an insight into the blessings God has graciously given us.

Now, brothers, for your sakes I have applied all this to Apollos and myself, that from us as illustrations you might learn the lesson, "Never go beyond what is written," so that you might stop boasting in favor of one teacher against another.

For who makes you superior? And what do you have that you did not get from someone? But if you got it from someone, why do you boast as though you had not?

For though you have ten thousand teachers in the Christian life, you certainly could not have many fathers. For it was I myself who became your father through your union with Christ Jesus, which resulted from my telling you the good news.

And yet, you are proud of it, instead of being sorry for it, and seeing to it that the man who has done this be removed from your membership!

For my part, though I have been absent from you in person, I have been present with you in spirit, and so as really present, by the authority of our Lord Jesus, I have already passed judgment upon the man who has done this --

You must clean out the old yeast, that you may be a fresh lump, as you are to be free from the old yeast. For our Passover Lamb, Christ, has already been sacrificed.

but for God to judge those who are outside? You must expel that wicked person from your membership.

Keep on running from sexual immorality! Any other sin that a man commits is one outside his body, but the man who commits the sexual sin is sinning against his own body.

Or, are you not conscious that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit that is in you, whom you have as a gift from God? Furthermore, you are not your own,

You husbands and wives must stop refusing each other what is due, unless you agree to do so just for awhile, so as to have plenty of time for prayer, and then to be together again, so as to keep Satan from tempting you because of your lack of self-control.

However, I should like for everyone to be just as I am myself, yet each of us has his own special gift from God, one for one way, another for another.

About unmarried women I have no command from the Lord, but I will give you my opinion as of one who is trustworthy, since I have had mercy shown me by the Lord.

I want you to be free from worldly worries. An unmarried man is concerned about the affairs of the Lord.

But the father who stands firm in his purpose, without having any necessity for doing so, and he has made the decision in his own heart to keep her single, will do what is right.

So then, if food can make my brother fall, I will never, no, never, eat meat again, in order to keep my brother from falling.

Or is it Barnabas and I alone who have no right to refrain from working for a living?

If we have sown the spiritual seed for you, is it too great for us to reap a material support from you?

If others share this right with you, have we not a stronger claim? Yet, we have never used this right; no, we keep on bearing everything, to keep from hindering the progress of the good news of Christ.

Do you not know that those who do the work about the temple get their living from the temple, and those who constantly attend on the altar share its offerings?

Yes, indeed, though I am free from any human power, I have made myself a slave to everybody, to win as many as possible.

and all drank the same spiritual drink -- for they continued to drink the water from the spiritual Rock which accompanied them, and that Rock was the Christ --

Now all these things occurred as warnings to us, to keep us from hankering after what is evil, in the ways they did.

So then, my dearly beloved, keep on running from idolatry.

For man did not originate from woman, but woman did from man,

But from the Lord's point of view woman is not independent of man nor man of woman.

For just as woman originated from man, so man is born of woman, and both, with everything else, originated from God.

For the account that I passed on to you I myself received from the Lord Himself, that the Lord Jesus on the night He was betrayed took a loaf of bread

For every time you eat this bread and drink from this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes again.

So whoever eats the bread and drinks from the Lord's cup in an unworthy way is guilty of sinning against the Lord's body and blood.

A man, then, must examine himself, and only in this way should he eat any of the bread and drink from the cup.

If I should have the gift of prophecy, And know all secret truths, and knowledge in its every form, and have such perfect faith that I could move mountains, but have no love, I am nothing.

If I should dole out everything I have for charity, and give my body up to torture in mere boasting pride, but have no love, I get from it no good at all.

So, my brothers, cultivate the gift of prophetic speaking, but stop preventing others from speaking in ecstasy.

that He was buried, that on the third day He was raised from the dead, in accordance with the Scriptures,

Now if we preach that Christ has been raised from the dead, how is it that some of you are saying that there is no such thing as a resurrection of the dead?

But in reality Christ has been raised from the dead, the first to be raised of those who have fallen asleep.

For just as all men die by virtue of their descent from Adam, so all such as are in union with Christ will be made to live again.

If from merely human motives I have fought wild beasts here in Ephesus, what profit will it be to me? If the dead are never raised at all, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall be dead."

One kind of splendor belongs to the sun, another to the moon, and another to the stars; yes, one star differs from another in splendor.

The first man was made of the dust of the earth; the second Man is from heaven.

Now those who are made of the dust are just like him who was first made of dust, and those who are heavenly are like Him who is from heaven,

and as we have reflected the likeness of him who was made of dust, let us also reflect the likeness of the Man from heaven.

So, my dear brothers, continue to be firm, incapable of being moved, always letting the cup run over in the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the service of the Lord is never thrown away.

Be always on your guard; stand firm in your faith; keep on acting like men; continue to grow in strength;