For you have grown rich in everything through union with him??n power of expression and in capacity for knowledge.

For I have been informed, my brothers, by Chloe's people, that quarrels are going on among you.

so that in his presence no human being might have anything to boast of.

Yet there is a wisdom that we impart when we are with people who have a mature faith, but it is not what this world calls wisdom, nor what the authorities of this world, doomed as they are to pass away, would call so.

It is a wisdom unknown to any of the authorities of this world, for otherwise they would never have crucified our glorious Lord.

But the Spirit we have received is not that of the world, but the Spirit that comes from God, which we have to make us realize the blessings God has given us.

What is Apollos? Or what is Paul? Just servants through whom you came to have faith, as the Lord gave each of us opportunity.

If what a man has built on the foundation stands the test, he will have his pay.

Now, brothers, for your benefit I have applied all this only to Apollos and myself, by using us as illustrations to teach you the old lesson, "Never go beyond the letter," and to keep any of you from boasting of one teacher at the expense of another.

For who sees anything special in you? And what have you got that you have not been given? But if it has been given you, why do you boast as though it had not been?

Are you satisfied already? Have you become rich already? Have you entered your kingdom without waiting for us? I wish you had entered it, so that we might share it with you!

For it seems to me, God has exhibited us apostles at the very end of the procession, like the men condemned to die in the arena. For we have become a spectacle to the whole universe, angels as well as men.

To this day we have gone hungry, thirsty, and ill-clad; we have had rough usage, we have had no home,

we have worked with our hands for a living. When people abuse us, we bless them, when they persecute us, we put up with it,

when they slander us, we try to conciliate them. We have come to be like the scum of the earth, the dregs of the world, and we are so now.

For no matter how many guides you may have in the Christian life, you will not have many fathers; for in this matter of union with Christ, I became your father, through preaching the good news to you.

This is why I have sent Timothy to you. He is a dear child of mine, in the service of the Lord, and one on whom you can depend, and he will help you to keep in mind my methods in the service of Christ Jesus, which I follow everywhere in every church.

But I am coming very soon to see you, if the Lord is willing, and then I will find out, not what these conceited people have to say, but what they can actually do.

Which will you have? Shall I come to you with a stick, or in a loving and gentle spirit?

For my part, though I have been absent from you in person, I have been present with you in spirit, and as thus present I have already passed judgment upon the man who has done this,

I have handed the man over to Satan, for his physical destruction, in order that his spirit may be saved on the Day of the Lord.

I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people??10 not that you are to have nothing whatever to do with the immoral people of the world, any more than with its greedy and grasping people or idolaters, for then you would have to leave the world altogether.

For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not your part to judge those who are inside the church,

If then you have ordinary matters to be settled, will you submit them for judgment to men who are nothing in the church?

Do you not know that wrongdoers will not have any share in God's kingdom? Do not let anyone mislead you. People who are immoral or idolaters or adulterers or sensual or given to unnatural vice

or thieves or greedy??runkards, abusive people, robbers??ill not have any share in God's kingdom.

Some of you used to be like that; but you have washed it all away, you have been consecrated, you have become upright, by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and through the Spirit of our God.

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit that is within you, which you have received from God? Besides, you are not your own;

you have been bought and paid for. Therefore, honor God with your bodies.

But there is so much immorality that every man had better have a wife of his own, and every woman a husband of her own.

I should like to have everyone be just as I am myself; but each one has his own special gift from God, one of one kind, and one of another.

If a man was circumcised when he was called, he must not try to alter it. If a man was uncircumcised when he was called, he must not have himself circumcised.

You have been bought and paid for; you must not let yourselves become slaves to men.

About unmarried women I have no command of the Lord to give you, but I will give you my opinion as that of one on whom through the Lord's mercy you can depend.

But if you do marry, there is no sin in that. And if a girl marries, it is no sin. But those who marry will have worldly trouble, which I would like to spare you.

But this I do say, brothers. The appointed time has grown very short. From this time on those who have wives should live as though they had none,

But she will be happier, in my judgment, if she remains as she is, and I think I have God's spirit as well as other people.

About food that has been offered to idols, it is true, as you say, that we all have some knowledge on that matter. Knowledge gives people airs; love is what builds up character.

As to eating things, then, that have been offered to idols, we all know that no idol has any real existence, and that there is no God but one.

Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the product of my work in the Lord's service?

Have we not a right to our food and drink?

Have we not a right to take a Christian wife about with us, like the rest of the apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas?

Or is it only Barnabas and I that have no right to give up working for a living?

If others enjoy such rights over you, have we not a still better claim? But, you say, we have never availed ourselves of this right. No, we will stand anything rather than put any hindrance in the way of the good news of the Christ.

But I have not availed myself of any of these rights. And I am not writing this now so that I may become an illustration of this; I had rather die than do that. No one shall deprive me of this boast of mine.

For if I do it of my own accord, I have my pay, but if I do it because I must, it is still a responsibility that I am charged with.

Though I am free from anyone's control, I have made myself everyone's slave, so as to win over all the more.

To the Jews I have become like a Jew, to win Jews over; to men under the Law I have become like a man under the Law, though I am not myself under the Law, so as to win over those who are under the Law.

To those who have no law I have become like a man without any law??hough I am not without the law of God, but under the law of Christ??o as to win over those who are without any law.

To the overscrupulous I have become overscrupulous, so as to win the overscrupulous; I have become everything to everybody, so as by all means to save some of them.

But I beat and bruise my body and make it my slave, so that after I have called others to the contest I may not be disqualified myself.

For I would not have you forget, brothers, that though our forefathers were all protected by the cloud, and all passed safely through the sea,

These things happened to them as a warning to others, but they were written down to instruct us, in whose days the ages have reached their climax.

It is no superhuman temptation that you have had. And God can be depended on, not to let you be tried beyond your strength, but when temptation comes, to give you a way out of it, so that you can withstand it.

Therefore, my dear brothers, have nothing to do with the worship of idols.

Think of the Israelites' practices. Do not those who eat what is sacrificed have divine fellowship at the sacrificial altar?

No, but that what the heathen sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons.

For if a woman will not wear a veil, let her cut off her hair too. But if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, let her wear a veil.

Have you no houses to eat and drink in? Or do you mean to show your contempt for the church of God, and to humiliate those who have none? What can I say to you? Can I approve of you? Not in this matter certainly.

This is why many of you are sick and ill and a number have fallen asleep.

For we have all??ews or Greeks, slaves or free men??een baptized in one spirit to form one body, and we have all been saturated with one Spirit.

If all the body were eye, how would we hear? If it were all ear, how could we have a sense of smell?

I will show you a far better way. If I can speak the languages of men and even of angels, but have no love, I am only a noisy gong or a clashing cymbal.

If I am inspired to preach and know all the secret truths and possess all knowledge, and if I have such perfect faith that I can move mountains, but have no love, I am nothing.

But as it is brothers, if I come back to you and speak ecstatically, what good will I do you, unless I have some revelation or special knowledge or message or teaching to give you?

If there is any ecstatic speaking, let it be limited to two or three people at the most, and have one speak at a time and someone explain what he says.

But if there is no one to explain it, have him keep quiet in church, and talk to himself and to God.

If anyone claims to be inspired to preach, or to have any other spiritual endowment, let him understand that what I am now writing you is a command from the Lord.

Now I want to remind you, brothers, of the form in which I presented to you the good news I brought, which you accepted and have stood by,

After that he was seen by more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, although some of them have fallen asleep.

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.

and we are found guilty of misrepresenting God, for we have testified that he raised Christ, when he did not do it, if it is true that the dead are never raised.

Yes, and those who have fallen asleep in trust in Christ have perished.

If we have centered our hopes on Christ in this life, and that is all, we are the most pitiable people in the world.

But the truth is, Christ was raised from the dead, the first to be raised of those who have fallen asleep.

For since it was through a man that we have death, it is through a man also that we have the raising of the dead.

Otherwise, what do people mean by having themselves baptized on behalf of their dead? If the dead do not rise at all, why do they have themselves baptized on their behalf?

From the human point of view, what good is it to me that I have fought wild animals here in Ephesus? If the dead do not rise at all, "Let us eat and drink, for we will be dead tomorrow!"

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

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;

Flesh is not all alike; men have one kind, animals another, birds another, and fish another.

and as we have been like the man of the earth, let us also try to be like the man from heaven.

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.

for I have a great and promising opportunity here, as well as many opponents.

As for our brother Apollos, I have often urged him to visit you with the other brothers, and he is quite unwilling to come now, but he will come when he has a good opportunity.

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.

And I am glad that Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus have come here, for they have made up for your absence.

They have cheered my heart, and yours too. You should appreciate such men.