Day 335: 1 Corinthians 5 - 9
Bible in a year reading for day 335.
1 Corinthians 5
- 13 God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked man from among you.”
1 Corinthians 6
- 1 If any of you has a grievance against another, how dare he go to law before the unrighteous instead of before the saints!
- 2 Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases?
- 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life!
- 4 So if you need to settle everyday matters, do you appoint as judges those of no standing in the church?
- 5 I say this to your shame. Is there really no one among you wise enough to arbitrate between his brothers?
- 6 Instead, one brother goes to law against another, and this in front of unbelievers!
- 7 The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means that you are thoroughly defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?
- 8 Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, even against your own brothers!
- 9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who submit to or perform homosexual acts,
- 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor verbal abusers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.
- 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
- 12 “Everything is permissible for me,” but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me,” but I will not be mastered by anything.
- 13 “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food,” but God will destroy them both. The body is not intended for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
- 14 By His power God raised the Lord from the dead, and He will raise us also.
- 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!
- 16 Or don’t you know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”
- 17 But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with Him in spirit.
- 18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a man can commit is outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.
- 19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;
- 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body.
1 Corinthians 7
- 1 Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good to abstain from sexual relations.
- 2 But because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.
- 3 The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.
- 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife.
- 5 Do not deprive each other, except by mutual consent and for a time, so you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again, so that Satan will not tempt you through your lack of self-control.
- 6 I say this as a concession, not as a command.
- 7 I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.
- 8 Now to the unmarried and widows I say this: It is good for them to remain unmarried, as I am.
- 9 But if they cannot control themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
- 10 To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband.
- 11 But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.
- 12 To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If a brother has an unbelieving wife and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her.
- 13 And if a woman has an unbelieving husband and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him.
- 14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his believing wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy.
- 15 But if the unbeliever leaves, let him go. The believing brother or sister is not bound in such cases. God has called you to live in peace.
- 16 How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?
- 17 Regardless, each one should lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is what I prescribe in all the churches.
- 18 Was a man already circumcised when he was called? He should not become uncircumcised. Was a man still uncircumcised when called? He should not be circumcised.
- 19 Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commandments is what counts.
- 20 Each one should remain in the situation he was in when he was called.
- 21 Were you a slave when you were called? Do not let it concern you—but if you can gain your freedom, take the opportunity.
- 22 For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord’s freedman. Conversely, he who was a free man when he was called is Christ’s slave.
- 23 You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men.
- 24 Brothers, each one should remain in the situation he was in when God called him.
- 25 Now about virgins, I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgment as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy.
- 26 Because of the present crisis, I think it is good for a man to remain as he is.
- 27 Are you committed to a wife? Do not seek to be released. Are you free of commitment? Do not look for a wife.
- 28 But if you do marry, you have not sinned. And if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. But those who marry will face troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this.
- 29 What I am saying, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none;
- 30 those who weep, as if they did not; those who are joyful, as if they were not; those who make a purchase, as if they had nothing;
- 31 and those who use the things of this world, as if not dependent on them. For this world in its present form is passing away.
- 32 I want you to be free from concern. The unmarried man is concerned about the work of the Lord, how he can please the Lord.
- 33 But the married man is concerned about the affairs of this world, how he can please his wife,
- 34 and his interests are divided. The unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the work of the Lord, how she can be holy in both body and spirit. But the married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world, how she can please her husband.
- 35 I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but in order to promote proper decorum and undivided devotion to the Lord.
- 36 However, if someone thinks he is acting inappropriately toward his betrothed, and if she is beyond her youth and they ought to marry, let him do as he wishes; he is not sinning; they should get married.
- 37 But the man who is firmly established in his heart and under no constraint, with control over his will and resolve in his heart not to marry the virgin, he will do well.
- 38 So then, he who marries the virgin does well, but he who does not marry her does even better.
- 39 A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, as long as he belongs to the Lord.
- 40 In my judgment, however, she is happier if she remains as she is. And I think that I too have the Spirit of God.
1 Corinthians 8
- 1 Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
- 2 The one who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.
- 3 But the one who loves God is known by God.
- 4 So about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world, and that there is no God but one.
- 5 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many so-called gods and lords),
- 6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we exist. And there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we exist.
- 7 But not everyone has this knowledge. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that they eat such food as if it were sacrificed to an idol. And since their conscience is weak, it is defiled.
- 8 But food does not bring us closer to God: We are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.
- 9 Be careful, however, that your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak.
- 10 For if someone with a weak conscience sees you who are well informed eating in an idol’s temple, will he not be encouraged to eat food sacrificed to idols?
- 11 So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge.
- 12 By sinning against your brothers in this way and wounding their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.
- 13 Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to stumble.
1 Corinthians 9
- 1 Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you yourselves not my workmanship in the Lord?
- 2 Even if I am not an apostle to others, surely I am to you. For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.
- 3 This is my defense to those who scrutinize me:
- 4 Have we no right to food and to drink?
- 5 Have we no right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas?
- 6 Or are Barnabas and I the only apostles who must work for a living?
- 7 Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Who tends a flock and does not drink of its milk?
- 8 Do I say this from a human perspective? Doesn’t the Law say the same thing?
- 9 For it is written in the Law of Moses: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” Is it about oxen that God is concerned?
- 10 Isn’t He actually speaking on our behalf? Indeed, this was written for us, because when the plowman plows and the thresher threshes, they should also expect to share in the harvest.
- 11 If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much for us to reap a material harvest from you?