Study Desk

It is not everyone, however, who has this knowledge. Since some have become so accustomed to idols until now, they still think of the food they eat as food offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.

and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.

Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness.

Do not become idolaters as some of them did; as it is written, "The people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play."

These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come.

No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons.

In the law it is written, "By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners I will speak to this people; yet even then they will not listen to me," says the Lord.

If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your mind?

Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.

Now, brothers and sisters, you know that members of the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia, and they have devoted themselves to the service of the saints;

I rejoice at the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus, because they have made up for your absence;

What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, "I will live in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

For, as I can testify, they voluntarily gave according to their means, and even beyond their means,

and this, not merely as we expected; they gave themselves first to the Lord and, by the will of God, to us,

As for Titus, he is my partner and co-worker in your service; as for our brothers, they are messengers of the churches, the glory of Christ.

while they long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God that he has given you.

For they say, "His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible."

We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another, and compare themselves with one another, they do not show good sense.

And what I do I will also continue to do, in order to deny an opportunity to those who want an opportunity to be recognized as our equals in what they boast about.

Are they ministers of Christ? I am talking like a madman—I am a better one: with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless floggings, and often near death.