Study Desk

This is the way any person is to regard us: as ^(C1)servants of Christ and ^(C2)stewards of ^(C3)the mysteries of God.

In this case, moreover, it is required ^(F1)of stewards that one be found trustworthy.

But to me it is an insignificant matter that I would be examined by you, or by any human ^(F1)court; in fact, I do not even examine myself.

For I ^(C1)am not aware of anything against myself; however I am not ^(C2)vindicated by this, but the one who examines me is the Lord.

Therefore ^(C1)do not go on ^(F1)passing judgment before ^(F2)the time, but wait ^(C2)until the Lord comes, who will both ^(C3)bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of human hearts; and then ^(C4)praise will come to each person from God.

Now these things, brothers and sisters, I have figuratively applied to myself and Apollos on your account, so that in us you may learn not to exceed ^(C1)what is written, so that no one of you will ^(C2)become ^(F1)arrogant ^(C3)in behalf of one against the other.

For who considers you as superior? ^(C1)What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?

You are ^(C1)already filled, you have already become rich, you have become kings without us; and indeed, I wish that you had become kings so that we also might reign with you!

For I think, God has exhibited us, the apostles, last of all as men ^(C1)condemned to death, because we ^(C2)have become a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to mankind.

We are ^(C1)fools on account of Christ, but ^(C2)you are prudent in Christ! ^(C3)We are weak, but you are strong! You are distinguished, but we are without honor!

Up to this present hour we are both ^(C1)hungry and thirsty, and are poorly clothed and roughly treated and homeless;

and we labor, ^(C1)working with our own hands; when we are ^(C2)verbally abused, we bless; when we are ^(C3)persecuted, we endure it;

when we are slandered, we ^(F1)reply as friends; we have ^(C1)become as the scum of the world, the dregs of all things, even until now.

I do not write these things to ^(C1)shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved ^(C2)children.

For if you were to have countless ^(C1)tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in ^(C2)Christ Jesus I ^(C3)became your father through the ^(C4)gospel.

Therefore I urge you, be ^(C1)imitators of me.

For this reason I ^(C1)have sent to you ^(C2)Timothy, who is my ^(C3)beloved and faithful child in the Lord, and he will remind you of my ways which are in Christ, ^(C4)just as I teach everywhere in every church.

Now some have become ^(F1)(C1)arrogant, as though I were not ^(C2)coming to you.

But I ^(C1)will come to you soon, ^(C2)if the Lord wills, and I shall find out, not the ^(F1)words of those who are ^(C3)arrogant, but their power.

For the kingdom of God is ^(C1)not in ^(F1)words, but in power.

What do you desire? ^(C1)That I come to you with a rod, or with love and a spirit of gentleness?

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and sexual immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, namely, that someone has ^(C1)his father's wife.

^(F1)You ^(C1)have become ^(F2)arrogant and ^(F1)have not ^(C2)mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be ^(C3)removed from your midst.

For I, on my part, though ^(C1)absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present.

^(C1)In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and ^(F1)I with you in spirit, ^(C2)with the power of our Lord Jesus,

I have decided ^(F1)to ^(C1)turn such a person over to ^(C2)Satan for the destruction of his ^(F2)body, so that his spirit may be saved on ^(C3)the day of the ^(F3)Lord.

^(C1)Your boasting is not good. ^(C2)Do you not know that ^(C3)a little ^(F1)leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?

Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our ^(C1)Passover also has been sacrificed.

Therefore let's celebrate the feast, ^(C1)not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

I wrote to you in my letter ^(C1)not to associate with sexually immoral people;

I did not at all mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the greedy and swindlers, or with ^(C1)idolaters, for then you would have to leave the world.

But ^(F1)actually, I ^(F2)wrote to you not to associate ^(F3)with any so-called ^(C1)brother if he is a sexually immoral person, or a greedy person, or ^(C2)an idolater, or is verbally abusive, or habitually drunk, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a person.

For what business of mine is it to judge ^(C1)outsiders? ^(C2)Do you not judge those who are within the church?

But those who are outside, God ^(F1)judges. ^(C1)REMOVE THE EVIL PERSON FROM AMONG YOURSELVES.

Does any one of you, when he has a ^(F1)case against ^(F2)his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous and ^(C1)not before the ^(F3)saints?

Or ^(C1)do you not know that ^(C2)the ^(F1)saints will judge ^(C3)the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to form the smallest ^(F2)law courts?

^(C1)Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life?

So if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, ^(F1)do you appoint them as judges who are of no account in the church?

^(C1)I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not among you anyone wise who will be able to decide between his ^(C2)brothers and sisters,

but brother goes to law with brother, and that before ^(C1)unbelievers?

Actually, then, it is already a defeat for you, that you have lawsuits with one another. ^(C1)Why not rather suffer the wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?

On the contrary, you yourselves do wrong and defraud. And this to your ^(C1)brothers and sisters!

Or ^(C1)do you not know that the unrighteous will not ^(C2)inherit the kingdom of God? ^(C3)Do not be deceived; ^(C4)neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor ^(F1)homosexuals,

nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor those habitually drunk, nor verbal abusers, nor swindlers, will ^(C1)inherit the kingdom of God.

^(C1)Such were some of you; but you were ^(C2)washed, but you were ^(C3)sanctified, but you were ^(C4)justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and ^(F1)in the Spirit of our God.

^(C1)All things are permitted for me, but not all things are of benefit. All things are permitted for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.

^(C1)Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, however God will ^(C2)do away with both ^(F1)of them. But the body is not for sexual immorality, but ^(C3)for the Lord, and ^(C4)the Lord is for the body.

Now God has not only ^(C1)raised the Lord, but ^(C2)will also raise us up through His power.

^(C1)Do you not know that ^(C2)your bodies are parts of Christ? Shall I then take away the parts of Christ and make them parts of a prostitute? ^(F1)(C3)Far from it!

Or ^(C1)do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, "^(C2)THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH."

But the one who joins himself to the Lord is ^(C1)one spirit with Him.

^(C1)Flee sexual immorality. Every other sin that a person commits is outside the body, but the ^(F1)sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

Or ^(C1)do you not know that ^(C2)your body is a ^(F1)temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from ^(F2)God, and that ^(C3)you are not your own?

For ^(C1)you have been bought for a price: therefore glorify God in ^(C2)your body.