In this way my testimony to Christ has been confirmed in your experience,

Christ has been parceled out by you! It was not Paul who was crucified for you, was it? You were not baptized in Paul's name, were you?

So where is your philosopher? Where is your man of letters? Where is your logician of this age? Has not God shown up the nonsense of the world's wisdom?

but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks alike, the Christ who is God's power and God's wisdom.

So you owe it all to Him through union with Christ Jesus, whom God has made our wisdom, our means of right standing, our consecration, and our redemption,

But, as the Scripture says, they are: "Things which eye has never seen and ear has never heard, and never have occurred to human hearts, which God prepared for those who love Him."

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.

For who has ever known the Lord's thoughts, so that he can instruct Him? But we now possess Christ's thoughts.

Are you not conscious that you are God's temple, and that the Spirit of God has His permanent home in you?

For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on exhibition at the disgraced end of the procession, as they do with men who are doomed to die in the arena.

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.

When one of you has a grievance against his neighbor, does he dare to go to law before a heathen court, instead of laying the case before God's people?

I ask this to make you blush with shame. Has it come to this, that there is not a single wise man among you who could settle a grievance of one brother against another,

but one brother has to go to law with another, and that before unbelieving judges?

Or, are you not aware that a man who has to do with a prostitute makes his body one with hers? For God says, "The two shall be physically one."

The wife does not have the right to do as she pleases with her own body; the husband has his right to it. In the same way the husband does not have the right to do as he pleases with his own body; the wife has her right to it.

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.

To the rest of the people I myself would say -- though the Lord Himself has said nothing about it -- if a Christian has a wife that is not a believer and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her;

and a woman who has a husband that is not a believer, but he consents to live with her, must not divorce her husband.

But if the unbelieving consort actually leaves, let the separation stand. In such cases the Christian husband or wife is not morally bound; God has called us to live in peace.

Has a man been called after he was circumcised? He must not try to change it. Has a man been called without being circumcised? He must not be circumcised.

Being circumcised or not being circumcised has no value, but keeping God's commands is important.

For the slave who has been called to union with the Lord is the Lord's freedman; in the same way the freeman who has been called is a slave of Christ.

But if you do get married, you have not sinned in doing so. And if a girl gets married, she has not sinned in doing so. But those who do will have trouble in their earthly life, and I am trying to spare you this.

I mean this, brothers. The time has been cut short. For the future, men who have wives should live as though they had none,

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.

Now about the foods that have been sacrificed to idols: We know that every one of us has some knowledge of the matter. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

If a man supposes that he has already gotten some true knowledge, as yet he has not learned it as he ought to know it.

For if somebody sees you, who have an intelligent view of this matter, partaking of a meal in an idol's temple, will he not be emboldened, with his overscrupulous conscience, to eat the food which has been sacrificed to an idol?

Just so the Lord has issued orders that those who preach the good news shall get their living out of it.

Those things continued to befall them as warnings to others, and they were written down for the purpose of instructing us, in whose lives the climax of the ages has been reached.

No temptation has taken hold of you but what is common to human nature. And God is to be trusted not to let you be tempted beyond your strength, but when temptation comes, to make a way out of it, so that you can bear up under it.

But if someone says to you, "This meat has been offered as a heathen sacrifice," make it your rule not to eat it, for the sake of the man who warned you and for conscience' sake;

For just as the human body is one and yet has many parts, and all the parts of the body, many as they are, constitute but one body, so it is with Christ.

But as it now is, God has placed the parts, every one of them, in the body just as He wanted them to be.

while our well-shaped parts do not want for anything. Yes, God has perfectly adjusted the body, giving great honor to its apparently inferior parts,

And God has placed people in the church, first as apostles, second as prophets, third as teachers, then wonder-workers; then people with power to cure the sick, helpers, managers, ecstatic speakers.

Hence, if the whole church has met and everybody speaks in ecstasy, and illiterate people or unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are crazy?

Then what is our conclusion, brothers? When you meet together, everybody has a song, something to teach, a revelation, an ecstatic utterance, or an explanation of one. It must all be for the upbuilding of all.

Did the message of God begin with you Corinthians? Or, are you the only people it has reached?

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?

If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised,

and if Christ was not raised, the message which we preach has nothing in it; there is nothing in our faith either,

For if the dead are never raised, Christ has not been raised;

and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is a mere delusion; you are still under the penalty of your sins.

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

for He has put everything in subjection under His feet. But when He says that everything has been put in subjection to Him, He Himself is evidently excepted who put it all in subjection to Him.

And when everything has been put in subjection to Him, then the Son Himself will also become subject to Him who has put everything in subjection to Him, so that God may be everything to everybody.

This is the way the Scripture puts it too, "The first man Adam became a living creature." The last Adam has become a life-giving Spirit.

And when this part once capable of dying puts on the body that can never die, then what the Scripture says will come true, "Death has been swallowed up in victory.

For I have an opportunity here that is great and calls for work, and it has many opponents.

As for our brother Apollos, I have earnestly urged him to go to see you, but he is not at all inclined to come just now; yet he is coming when he has a good opportunity.