1 Corinthians 6
6
The error of litigation in the Church
1Now another matter — the Greeks are devoted to litigation, it is a passion with them, but what has that to do with you? Are you going to haunt the law-courts of Corinth and with cases which you bring against one another! 2This has little to do with the true judgment and justice which your faith exemplifies. 3That is capable of judging angels, and if you have it are you not even capable of settling these business disputes which arise amongst yourselves? 4-7Have you no one wise enough for that, but must you go to law with one another, and invoke the methods and assistance of a corrupt judicial system to get the better of your brother? Questions of everyday life then cannot be settled by the Church, but you must needs take them before those who know nothing of your faith, and whom the Church on that account esteems as of no account. Yet you bring your quarrels and disputes before them! And why do such disputes arise? 8Is it not because you still have in your midst the old spirit of over-reaching and dishonesty? I declare it is better to be wronged, to be cheated and robbed, and to take the injustice and say no more about it, for that would more resemble your calling than to do the opposite. 9Yes, for the old world of wickedness that God is judging, which is for ever excluded from His Kingdom, is still lurking in your midst. O do not be deceived by it, whatever cloak it may put on! Fornication, idolatry, adultery, sodomy, 10dishonesty, greed, drunkenness, cursing, theft — these are the things that hide the Kingdom of God, and they can never win it. 11Were you once involved in them, and were you purified, cleansed, justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God? Yes, you were, you had won clear of that spirit of perdition, but see that it does not entangle you again, know it for what it is.
Man not subordinate to physical nature
12True, I am free, I am independent, and can act as seems good to me, yet, though nothing is bad in itself, evil in its influence is dangerous. I am a free man, but I will not be mastered by any influences. 13Food and drink have nothing to do with my real being, they affect the belly, not me, you say, and I am in my true self independent of them. Yet that physical part of you is doomed to destruction along with the material things that feed it. Perhaps you would dare to apply the same view to the body. Never! The body is not for fornication. It is for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. 14And as the Lord was raised from the dead by the power of God, so shall we be raised. 15For there is nothing legitimate or natural for you in an appetite which demands such vile institutions and uses for its satisfaction. Your bodies are no longer carnal, they are members of Christ. 16Shall I take that which is spiritual and convert it into the very opposite, change the limbs of Christ into the flesh of a harlot? “They twain shall be of one flesh,” says Moses (Gen 2:24), and so this awful substitution takes place, and in the place of Christ’s body we find that of a harlot. Such then is their practice, this besetting sin of Corinth. Flee from it. 17For the One Spirit makes us one with the Lord. 18That is the truth, of which the other is the lie. Just as in the truth man cannot separate himself from the Lord, for there is but one Spirit, so in the false, in the carnal action, man cannot separate himself from the sin to which he surrenders, he sins not against another only, nor does the wrong of his action merely affect that which is outside himself. He cannot excuse himself by saying “it has nothing to do with my true being, it is inherent in the body only, and I disclaim its connection with me, though as a physical being I am forced by the power of Nature to submit to it, even as I am forced by other appetites to eat and drink!” The reasoning is false. 19Your bodies are spiritual structures, the spirit that dwells in you is of God, and your bodies are correspondingly spiritual, as temples, rather than animal organisms; 20they owe allegiance not to the physical self, but to Him who redeemed them at a price. God Himself is to be glorified in your bodies.
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1 Corinthians 6: GWC
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Translated in 1916, published in 1937.
1 Corinthians 6
6
1 How is it that anyone of you, having a dispute against another, would dare to be judged before the iniquitous, and not before the saints?
2 Or do you not know that the saints from this age shall judge it? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you unworthy, then, to judge even the smallest matters?
3 Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more the things of this age?
4 Therefore, if you have matters to judge concerning this age, why not appoint those who are most contemptible in the Church to judge these things!
5 But I am speaking so as to shame you. Is there no one among you wise enough, so that he might be able to judge between his brothers?
6 Instead, brother contends against brother in court, and this before the unfaithful!
7 Now there is certainly an offense among you, beyond everything else, when you have court cases against one another. Should you not accept injury instead? Should you not endure being cheated instead?
8 But you are doing the injuring and the cheating, and this toward brothers!
9 Do you not know that the iniquitous will not possess the kingdom of God? Do not choose to wander astray. For neither fornicators, nor servants of idolatry, nor adulterers,
10 nor the effeminate, nor males who sleep with males, nor thieves, nor the avaricious, nor the inebriated, nor slanderers, nor the rapacious shall possess the kingdom of God.
11 And some of you were like this. But you have been absolved, but you have been sanctified, but you have been justified: all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
12 All is lawful to me, but not all is expedient. All is lawful to me, but I will not be driven back by the authority of anyone.
13 Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food. But God shall destroy both the stomach and food. And the body is not for fornication, but rather for the Lord; and the Lord is for the body.
14 Truly, God has raised up the Lord, and he will raise us up by his power.
15 Do you not know that your bodies are a part of Christ? So then, should I take a part of Christ and make it a part of a harlot? Let it not be so!
16 And do you not know that whoever is joined to a harlot becomes one body? "For the two," he said, "shall be as one flesh."
17 But whoever is joined to the Lord is one spirit.
18 Flee from fornication. Every sin whatsoever that a man commits is outside of the body, but whoever fornicates, sins against his own body.
19 Or do you not know that your bodies are the Temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?
20 For you have been bought at a great price. Glorify and carry God in your body.
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