Bible Reading Plan – Day 318

₁Now, it is actually being said that there is sexual immorality among you so terrible that not even the heathen would be guilty of it. I am told that a man is sleeping with his stepmother! ₂How, then, can you be proud? On the contrary, you should be filled with sadness, and the man who has done such a thing should be expelled from your fellowship. _3-4And even though I am far away from you in body, still I am there with you in spirit; and as though I were there with you, I have in the name of our Lord Jesus already passed judgement on the man who has done this terrible thing. As you meet together, and I meet with you in my spirit, by the power of our Lord Jesus present with us, ₅you are to hand this man over to Satan for his body to be destroyed, so that his spirit may be saved in the Day of the Lord.

₆It is not right for you to be proud! You know the saying, “A little bit of yeast makes the whole batch of dough rise.” ₇You must remove the old yeast of sin so that you will be entirely pure. Then you will be like a new batch of dough without any yeast, as indeed I know you actually are. For our Passover Festival is ready, now that Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. ₈Let us celebrate our Passover, then, not with bread having the old yeast of sin and wickedness, but with the bread that has no yeast, the bread of purity and truth.

₉In the letter that I wrote you I told you not to associate with immoral people. ₁₀Now I did not mean pagans who are immoral or greedy or are thieves or who worship idols. To avoid them you would have to get out of the world completely. ₁₁What I meant was that you should not associate with a person who calls himself a believer but is immoral or greedy or worships idols or is a slanderer or a drunkard or a thief. Don't even sit down to eat with such a person.

_12-13After all, it is none of my business to judge outsiders. God will judge them. But should you not judge the members of your own fellowship? As the scripture says, “Remove the evil person from your group.”

₁If any of you have a dispute with another Christian, how dare you go before heathen judges instead of letting God's people settle the matter? ₂Don't you know that God's people will judge the world? Well, then, if you are to judge the world, aren't you capable of judging small matters? ₃Do you not know that we shall judge the angels? How much more, then, the things of this life! ₄If such matters come up, are you going to take them to be settled by people who have no standing in the church? ₅Shame on you! Surely there is at least one wise person in your fellowship who can settle a dispute between fellow-Christians. ₆Instead, one Christian goes to court against another and lets unbelievers judge the case!

₇The very fact that you have legal disputes among yourselves shows that you have failed completely. Would it not be better for you to be wronged? Would it not be better for you to be robbed? ₈Instead, you yourselves wrong one another and rob one another, even your own brothers and sisters! ₉Surely you know that the wicked will not possess God's Kingdom. Do not fool yourselves; people who are immoral or who worship idols or are adulterers or homosexual perverts ₁₀or who steal or are greedy or are drunkards or who slander others or are thieves — none of these will possess God's Kingdom. ₁₁Some of you were like that. But you have been purified from sin; you have been dedicated to God; you have been put right with God by the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

₁₂Someone will say, “I am allowed to do anything.” Yes; but not everything is good for you. I could say that I am allowed to do anything, but I am not going to let anything make me its slave. ₁₃Someone else will say, “Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food.” Yes; but God will put an end to both. The body is not to be used for sexual immorality, but to serve the Lord; and the Lord provides for the body. ₁₄God raised the Lord from death, and he will also raise us by his power.

₁₅You know that your bodies are parts of the body of Christ. Shall I take a part of Christ's body and make it part of the body of a prostitute? Impossible! ₁₆Or perhaps you don't know that the man who joins his body to a prostitute becomes physically one with her? The scripture says quite plainly, “The two will become one body.” ₁₇But he who joins himself to the Lord becomes spiritually one with him.

₁₈Avoid immorality. Any other sin a man commits does not affect his body; but the man who is guilty of sexual immorality sins against his own body. ₁₉Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and who was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourselves but to God; ₂₀he bought you for a price. So use your bodies for God's glory.

₁Now, to deal with the matters you wrote about.

A man does well not to marry. ₂But because there is so much immorality, every man should have his own wife, and every woman should have her own husband. ₃A man should fulfil his duty as a husband, and a woman should fulfil her duty as a wife, and each should satisfy the other's needs. ₄A wife is not the master of her own body, but her husband is; in the same way a husband is not the master of his own body, but his wife is. ₅Do not deny yourselves to each other, unless you first agree to do so for a while in order to spend your time in prayer; but then resume normal marital relations. In this way you will be kept from giving in to Satan's temptation because of your lack of self-control.

₆I tell you this not as an order, but simply as a concession. ₇Actually I would prefer that all of you were as I am; but each one has a special gift from God, one person this gift, another one that gift.

₈Now, to the unmarried and to the widows I say that it would be better for you to continue to live alone as I do. ₉But if you cannot restrain your desires, go ahead and marry — it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

₁₀For married people I have a command which is not my own but the Lord's: a wife must not leave her husband; ₁₁but if she does, she must remain single or else be reconciled to her husband; and a husband must not divorce his wife.

₁₂To the others I say (I, myself, not the Lord): if a Christian man has a wife who is an unbeliever and she agrees to go on living with him, he must not divorce her. ₁₃And if a Christian woman is married to a man who is an unbeliever and he agrees to go on living with her, she must not divorce him. ₁₄For the unbelieving husband is made acceptable to God by being united to his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made acceptable to God by being united to her Christian husband. If this were not so, their children would be like pagan children; but as it is, they are acceptable to God. ₁₅However, if the one who is not a believer wishes to leave the Christian partner, let it be so. In such cases the Christian partner, whether husband or wife, is free to act. God has called you to live in peace. ₁₆How can you be sure, Christian wife, that you will not save your husband? Or how can you be sure, Christian husband, that you will not save your wife?

₁₇Each of you should go on living according to the Lord's gift to you, and as you were when God called you. This is the rule I teach in all the churches. ₁₈If a circumcised man has accepted God's call, he should not try to remove the marks of circumcision; if an uncircumcised man has accepted God's call, he should not get circumcised. ₁₉For whether or not a man is circumcised means nothing; what matters is to obey God's commandments. ₂₀Each of you should remain as you were when you accepted God's call. ₂₁Were you a slave when God called you? Well, never mind; but if you have a chance to become free, use it. ₂₂For a slave who has been called by the Lord is free for the Lord; in the same way a free person who has been called by Christ is his slave. ₂₃God bought you for a price; so do not become slaves of human beings. ₂₄My friends, each of you should remain in fellowship with God in the same condition as you were when you were called.

₂₅Now, concerning what you wrote about unmarried people: I do not have a command from the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who by the Lord's mercy is worthy of trust.

₂₆Considering the present distress, I think it is better for a man to stay as he is. ₂₇Have you got a wife? Then don't try to get rid of her. Are you unmarried? Then don't look for a wife. ₂₈But if you do marry, you haven't committed a sin; and if an unmarried woman marries, she hasn't committed a sin. But I would rather spare you the everyday troubles that married people will have.

₂₉What I mean, my friends, is this: there is not much time left, and from now on married men should live as though they were not married; ₃₀those who weep, as though they were not sad; those who laugh, as though they were not happy; those who buy, as though they did not own what they bought; ₃₁those who deal in material goods, as though they were not fully occupied with them. For this world, as it is now, will not last much longer.

₃₂I would like you to be free from worry. An unmarried man concerns himself with the Lord's work, because he is trying to please the Lord. ₃₃But a married man concerns himself with worldly matters, because he wants to please his wife; ₃₄and so he is pulled in two directions. An unmarried woman or a virgin concerns herself with the Lord's work, because she wants to be dedicated both in body and spirit; but a married woman concerns herself with worldly matters, because she wants to please her husband.

₃₅I am saying this because I want to help you. I am not trying to put restrictions on you. Instead, I want you to do what is right and proper, and to give yourselves completely to the Lord's service without any reservation.

₃₆In the case of an engaged couple who have decided not to marry: if the man feels that he is not acting properly towards the young woman and if his passions are too strong and he feels that they ought to marry, then they should get married, as he wants to. There is no sin in this. ₃₇But if a man, without being forced to do so, has firmly made up his mind not to marry, and if he has his will under complete control and has already decided in his own mind what to do — then he does well not to marry the young woman. ₃₈So the man who marries does well, but the one who doesn't marry does even better.

₃₉A married woman is not free as long as her husband lives; but if her husband dies, then she is free to be married to any man she wishes, but only if he is a Christian. ₄₀She will be happier, however, if she stays as she is. That is my opinion, and I think that I too have God's Spirit.

₁Now, concerning what you wrote about food offered to idols.

It is true, of course, that “all of us have knowledge”, as they say. Such knowledge, however, puffs a person up with pride; but love builds up. ₂Those who think they know something really don't know as they ought to know. ₃But the person who loves God is known by him.

₄So then, about eating the food offered to idols: we know that an idol stands for something that does not really exist; we know that there is only the one God. ₅Even if there are so-called “gods”, whether in heaven or on earth, and even though there are many of these “gods” and “lords”, ₆yet there is for us only one God, the Father, who is the Creator of all things and for whom we live; and there is only one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things were created and through whom we live.

₇But not everyone knows this truth. Some people have been so used to idols that to this day when they eat such food they still think of it as food that belongs to an idol; their conscience is weak, and they feel they are defiled by the food. ₈Food, however, will not improve our relations with God; we shall not lose anything if we do not eat, nor shall we gain anything if we do eat.

₉Be careful, however, not to let your freedom of action make those who are weak in the faith fall into sin. ₁₀Suppose a person whose conscience is weak in this matter sees you, who have so-called “knowledge”, eating in the temple of an idol; will not this encourage him to eat food offered to idols? ₁₁And so this weak person, your brother for whom Christ died, will perish because of your “knowledge”! ₁₂And in this way you will be sinning against Christ by sinning against your Christian brothers and sisters and wounding their weak conscience. ₁₃So then, if food makes my brother or sister sin, I will never eat meat again, so as not to make my brother or sister fall into sin.