Study Desk

I planted the seed and Apollos watered it. But God is the one who made the seed grow.

So the one who plants is not important, and the one who waters is not important. Only God is important, because he is the one who makes things grow.

We are workers together for God, and you are like a farm that belongs to God. And you are a house that belongs to God.

Like an expert builder I built the foundation of that house. I used the gift that God gave me to do this. Other people are building on that foundation. But everyone should be careful how they build.

If you destroy God's temple, God will destroy you, because God's temple is holy. You yourselves are God's temple.

I say this because the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As the Scriptures say, "He catches those who think they are wise in their own clever traps."

And you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

You should think of us as servants of Christ, the ones God has trusted to do the work of making known his secret truths.

So don't judge anyone now. The time for judging will be when the Lord comes. He will shine light on everything that is now hidden in darkness. He will make known the secret purposes of our hearts. Then the praise each person should get will come from God.

But it seems to me that God has given me and the other apostles the last place. We are like prisoners condemned to die, led in a parade for the whole world to see—not just people but angels too.

We work hard with our own hands to feed ourselves. When people insult us, we ask God to bless them. When people treat us badly, we accept it.

I don't want to believe what I am hearing—that there is sexual sin among you. And it is such a bad kind of sexual sin that even those who have never known God don't allow it. People say that a man there has his father's wife.

It is not my business to judge those who are not part of the group of believers. God will judge them, but you must judge those who are part of your group. The Scriptures say, "Make the evil person leave your group."

In the past some of you were like that. But you were washed clean, you were made holy, and you were made right with God in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Someone else says, "Food is for the stomach, and the stomach for food." Yes, and God will destroy them both. But the body is not for sexual sin. The body is for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.

And God will raise our bodies from death with the same power he used to raise the Lord Jesus.

You should know that your body is a temple for the Holy Spirit that you received from God and that lives in you. You don't own yourselves.

God paid a very high price to make you his. So honor God with your body.

I wish everyone could be like me. But God has given each person a different ability. He makes some able to live one way, others to live a different way.

The husband who is not a believer is set apart for God through his believing wife. And the wife who is not a believer is set apart for God through her believing husband. If this were not true, your children would be unfit for God's use. But now they are set apart for him.