For my own part, Brothers, when I came to you, it was with no display of eloquence or philosophy that I came to tell the hidden purpose of God;

Some, I hear, are puffed up with pride, thinking that I am not coming to you.

Therefore let us keep our festival, not with the leaven of former days, nor with the leaven of vice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Everything is allowable for me! Yes, but everything is not profitable. Everything is allowable for me! Yes, but for my part, I will not let myself be enslaved by anything.

Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to give up working for our bread?

In the Cup of Blessing which we bless, is not there a sharing in the blood of the Christ? And in the Bread which we break, is not there a sharing in the Body of the Christ?

The Bread is one, and we, though many, are one body; for we all partake of that one Bread.

If, for my part, I take the food thankfully, why should I be abused for eating that for which I give thanks?

For I myself received from the Lord the account which I have in turn given to you-how the Lord Jesus, on the very night of his betrayal, took some bread,

For whenever you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death-till he comes.

Therefore, whoever eats the bread, or drinks the Lord's cup, in an irreverent spirit, will have to answer for an offence against the Lord's body and blood.

Let each man look into his own heart, and only then eat of the bread and drink from the cup.

The human body, I repeat, consists not of one part, but of many.

But in fact God has placed each individual part just where he thought fit in the body.

If, however, they all made up only one part, where would the body be?

Yes, God has so constructed the body--by giving a special honor to the part that lacks it-

If one part suffers, all the others suffer with it, and if one part has honor done it, all the others share its joy.

Daily I face death-I swear it, Brothers, by the pride in you that I feel through my union with Christ Jesus, our Lord.

I want you, on your part, to show deference to such men as these, as well as to every fellow laborer and earnest worker.