so that you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

because you are still fleshly. For since there is envy and strife among you, are you not fleshly and living like unbelievers?

If anyone’s work is burned up, it will be lost, but he will be saved; yet it will be like an escape through fire.

For I think God has displayed us, the apostles, in last place, like men condemned to die: We have become a spectacle to the world and to angels and to men.

when we are slandered, we respond graciously. Even now, we are like the world’s garbage, like the dirt everyone scrapes off their sandals.

And some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Do not deprive one another sexually—except when you agree for a time, to devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again; otherwise, Satan may tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

I wish that all people were just like me. But each has his own gift from God, one person in this way and another in that way.

Now when you sin like this against the brothers and wound their weak conscience, you are sinning against Christ.

Don’t we have the right to be accompanied by a Christian wife like the other apostles, the Lord’s brothers, and Cephas?

To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win Jews; to those under the law, like one under the law—though I myself am not under the law—to win those under the law.

To those who are without that law, like one without the law—not being without God’s law but within Christ’s law—to win those without the law.

Therefore I do not run like one who runs aimlessly or box like one beating the air.

Look at the people of Israel. Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in what is offered on the altar?

Don’t you have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you look down on the church of God and embarrass those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I praise you? I do not praise you for this!

When I was a child,
I spoke like a child,
I thought like a child,
I reasoned like a child.
When I became a man,
I put aside childish things.

Like the man made of dust,
so are those who are made of dust;
like the heavenly man,
so are those who are heavenly.

Therefore, no one should look down on him. Send him on his way in peace so he can come to me, for I am expecting him with the brothers.