Knights of Columbus Beaver Valley Chapter Electronic Books

The New Jerusalem Bible with Apocrypha
1 Corinithians

The busy port of Corinth had a lively and turbulent Christian community. Their first surviving letter from Paul treats difficulties in the community reported to Paul (at Ephesus, probably in ad 57) by their envoys, then answers various questions they brought to him. Finally Paul teaches about the resurrection. In dealing with these moral and practical issues Paul imparts invaluable teaching about Christ as the Wisdom of God, the Church as his Body, and the gifts of the Spirit in the Christian community. He stresses the primacy of conscience and the independent value of every Christian, for each has a particular part to play as a unique member of the Body of Christ. The gifts of the Spirit, no matter how spectacular, are to be assessed only by their contribution towards building up the Body of Christ.

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Chapter 1

Address and greetings. Thanksgiving

^1:1Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and Sosthenes, our brother, ²to the church of God in Corinth, to those who have been consecrated in Christ Jesus and called to be God's holy people, with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord as well as ours. ³Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. ⁴I am continually thanking God about you, for the grace of God which you have been given in Christ Jesus; ⁵in him you have been richly endowed in every kind of utterance and knowledge; ⁶so firmly has witness to Christ taken root in you. ⁷And so you are not lacking in any gift as you wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed; ⁸he will continue to give you strength till the very end, so that you will be irreproachable on the Day of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹You can rely on God, who has called you to be partners with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

DIVISIONS AND SCANDALS
FACTIONS IN THE CORINTHIAN CHURCH
Dissensions among the faithful

¹⁰Brothers, I urge you, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, not to have factions among yourselves but all to be in agreement in what you profess; so that you are perfectly united in your beliefs and judgements. ¹¹From what Chloe's people have been telling me about you, brothers, it is clear that there are serious differences among you. ¹²What I mean is this: every one of you is declaring, 'I belong to Paul,' or 'I belong to Apollos,' or 'I belong to Cephas,' ^{*[Cephas is the Aramaic word for 'Peter'. For Apollos see Ac 18:24]} or 'I belong to Christ.' ¹³Has Christ been split up? Was it Paul that was crucified for you, or was it in Paul's name that you were baptised? ¹⁴I am thankful I did not baptise any of you, except Crispus and Gaius, ¹⁵so that no one can say that you were baptised in my name. ¹⁶Yes, I did baptise the family of Stephanas, too; but besides these I do not think I baptised anyone.

The true wisdom and the false

¹⁷After all, Christ sent me not to baptise, but to preach the gospel; and not by means of wisdom of language, wise words which would make the cross of Christ pointless. ¹⁸The message of the cross is folly for those who are on the way to ruin, but for those of us who are on the road to salvation it is the power of God. ¹⁹As scripture says: I am going to destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of any who understand. ²⁰Where are the philosophers? Where are the experts? ^{*[Is 29:14; 19:12]} And where are the debaters of this age? Do you not see how God has shown up human wisdom as folly? ²¹Since in the wisdom of God the world was unable to recognise God through wisdom, it was God's own pleasure to save believers through the folly of the gospel. ²²While the Jews demand miracles and the Greeks look for wisdom, ²³we are preaching a crucified Christ: to the Jews an obstacle they cannot get over, to the gentiles foolishness, ²⁴but to those who have been called, whether they are Jews or Greeks, a Christ who is both the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵God's folly is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength. ²⁶Consider, brothers, how you were called; not many of you are wise by human standards, not many influential, not many from noble families. ²⁷No, God chose those who by human standards are fools to shame the wise; he chose those who by human standards are weak to shame the strong, ²⁸those who by human standards are common and contemptible-indeed those who count for nothing-to reduce to nothing all those that do count for something, ²⁹so that no human being might feel boastful before God. ³⁰It is by him that you exist in Christ Jesus, who for us was made wisdom from God, and saving justice and holiness and redemption. ³¹As scripture says: If anyone wants to boast, let him boast of the Lord. ^{*[cf. Jr 9:22-23]}

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Chapter 2

^2:1Now when I came to you, brothers, I did not come with any brilliance of oratory or wise argument to announce to you the mystery of God. ²I was resolved that the only knowledge I would have while I was with you was knowledge of Jesus, and of him as the crucified Christ. ³I came among you in weakness, in fear and great trembling ⁴and what I spoke and proclaimed was not meant to convince by philosophical argument, but to demonstrate the convincing power of the Spirit, ⁵so that your faith should depend not on human wisdom but on the power of God. ⁶But still, to those who have reached maturity, we do talk of a wisdom, not, it is true, a philosophy of this age or of the rulers of this age, who will not last long now. ⁷It is of the mysterious wisdom of God that we talk, the wisdom that was hidden, which God predestined to be for our glory before the ages began. ⁸None of the rulers of the age recognised it; for if they had recognised it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; ⁹but it is as scripture says: What no eye has seen and no ear has heard, what the mind of man cannot visualise; all that God has prepared for those who love him; ^{*[A free combination of Is 64:3 and Jr 3:16] 10}to us, though, God has given revelation through the Spirit, for the Spirit explores the depths of everything, even the depths of God. ¹¹After all, is there anyone who knows the qualities of anyone except his own spirit, within him; and in the same way, nobody knows the qualities of God except the Spirit of God. ¹²Now, the Spirit we have received is not the spirit of the world but God's own Spirit, so that we may understand the lavish gifts God has given us. ¹³And these are what we speak of, not in the terms learnt from human philosophy, but in terms learnt from the Spirit, fitting spiritual language to spiritual things. ¹⁴The natural person has no room for the gifts of God's Spirit; to him they are folly; he cannot recognise them, because their value can be assessed only in the Spirit. ¹⁵The spiritual person, on the other hand, can assess the value of everything, and that person's value cannot be assessed by anybody else. ¹⁶For: who has ever known the mind of the Lord? Who has ever been his adviser? ^{*[Is 40:13]} But we are those who have the mind of Christ.

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Chapter 3

^3:1And so, brothers, I was not able to talk to you as spiritual people; I had to talk to you as people still living by your natural inclinations, still infants in Christ; ²I fed you with milk and not solid food, for you were not yet able to take it-and even now, you are still not able to, ³for you are still living by your natural inclinations. As long as there are jealousy and rivalry among you, that surely means that you are still living by your natural inclinations and by merely human principles. ⁴While there is one that says, 'I belong to Paul' and another that says, 'I belong to Apollos' are you not being only too human?

The place of the Christian preacher

⁵For what is Apollos and what is Paul? The servants through whom you came to believe, and each has only what the Lord has given him. ⁶I did the planting, Apollos did the watering, but God gave growth. ⁷In this, neither the planter nor the waterer counts for anything; only God, who gives growth. ⁸It is all one who does the planting and who does the watering, and each will have the proper pay for the work that he has done. ⁹After all, we do share in God's work; you are God's farm, God's building. ¹⁰By the grace of God which was given to me, I laid the foundations like a trained master-builder, and someone else is building on them. Now each one must be careful how he does the building. ¹¹For nobody can lay down any other foundation than the one which is there already, namely Jesus Christ. ¹²On this foundation, different people may build in gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay or straw ¹³but each person's handiwork will be shown for what it is. The Day which dawns in fire will make it clear and the fire itself will test the quality of each person's work. ¹⁴The one whose work stands up to it will be given his wages; ¹⁵the one whose work is burnt down will suffer the loss of it, though he himself will be saved; he will be saved as someone might expect to be saved from a fire. ¹⁶Do you not realise that you are a temple of God with the Spirit of God living in you? ¹⁷If anybody should destroy the temple of God, God will destroy that person, because God's temple is holy; and you are that temple.

Conclusions

¹⁸There is no room for self-delusion. Any one of you who thinks he is wise by worldly standards must learn to be a fool in order to be really wise. ¹⁹For the wisdom of the world is folly to God. As scripture says: He traps the crafty in the snare of their own cunning ²⁰and again: The Lord knows the plans of the wise and how insipid they are. ^{*[Jb 5:13 followed by Ps 94:11] 21}So there is to be no boasting about human beings: everything belongs to you, ²²whether it is Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, the world, life or death, the present or the future-all belong to you; ²³but you belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God.

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Chapter 4

^4:1People should think of us as Christ's servants, stewards entrusted with the mysteries of God. ²In such a matter, what is expected of stewards is that each one should be found trustworthy. ³It is of no importance to me how you or any other human court may judge me: I will not even be the judge of my own self. ⁴It is true that my conscience does not reproach me, but that is not enough to justify me: it is the Lord who is my judge. ⁵For that reason, do not judge anything before the due time, until the Lord comes; he will bring to light everything that is hidden in darkness and reveal the designs of all hearts. Then everyone will receive from God the appropriate commendation. ⁶I have applied all this to myself and Apollos for your sakes, so that you can learn how the saying, 'Nothing beyond what is written' is true of us: no individual among you must become filled with his own importance and make comparisons, to another's detriment. ⁷Who made you so important? What have you got that was not given to you? And if it was given to you, why are you boasting as though it were your own? ⁸You already have everything-you are rich already-you have come into your kingdom, without any help from us! Well, I wish you were kings and we could be kings with you! ⁹For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on show right at the end, like men condemned to death: we have been exhibited as a spectacle to the whole universe, both angelic and human. ¹⁰Here we are, fools for Christ's sake, while you are the clever ones in Christ; we are weak, while you are strong; you are honoured, while we are disgraced. ¹¹To this day, we go short of food and drink and clothes, we are beaten up and we have no homes; ¹²we earn our living by labouring with our own hands; when we are cursed, we answer with a blessing; when we are hounded, we endure it passively; ¹³when we are insulted, we give a courteous answer. We are treated even now as the dregs of the world, the very lowest scum.

An appeal

¹⁴I am writing all this not to make you ashamed but simply to remind you, as my dear children; ¹⁵for even though you might have ten thousand slaves to look after you in Christ, you still have no more than one father, and it was I who fathered you in Christ Jesus, by the gospel. ¹⁶That is why I urge you to take me as your pattern ¹⁷and why I have sent you Timothy, a dear and faithful son to me in the Lord, who will remind you of my principles of conduct in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church. ¹⁸On the assumption that I was not coming to you, some of you have become filled with your own self-importance; ¹⁹but I shall be coming to you soon, the Lord willing, and then I shall find out not what these self-important people say, but what power they have. ²⁰For the kingdom of God consists not in spoken words but in power. ²¹What do you want then? Am I to come to you with a stick in my hand or in love, and with a spirit of gentleness?

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Chapter 5

INCEST IN CORINTH

^5:1It is widely reported that there is sexual immorality among you, immorality of a kind that is not found even among gentiles: that one of you is living with his stepmother. ^{*[Against OT and Roman law, but seemingly not Corinthian law, it was forbidden by the Jerusalem decision (Ac 15:20)] 2}And you so filled with your own self-importance! It would have been better if you had been grieving bitterly, so that the man who has done this thing were turned out of the community. ³For my part, however distant I am physically, I am present in spirit and have already condemned the man who behaved in this way, just as though I were present in person. ⁴When you have gathered together in the name of our Lord Jesus, with the presence of my spirit, and in the power of our Lord Jesus, ⁵hand such a man over to Satan, to be destroyed as far as natural life is concerned, so that on the Day of the Lord his spirit may be saved. ⁶Your self-satisfaction is ill founded. Do you not realise that only a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? ⁷Throw out the old yeast so that you can be the fresh dough, unleavened as you are. For our Passover has been sacrificed, that is, Christ; ⁸let us keep the feast, then, with none of the old yeast and no leavening of evil and wickedness, but only the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. ⁹In my letter, I wrote to you that you should have nothing to do with people living immoral lives. ¹⁰I was not including everybody in this present world who is sexually immoral, or everybody who is greedy, or dishonest or worships false gods-that would mean you would have to cut yourselves off completely from the world. ¹¹In fact what I meant was that you were not to have anything to do with anyone going by the name of brother who is sexually immoral, or is greedy, or worships false gods, or is a slanderer or a drunkard or dishonest; never even have a meal with anybody of that kind. ¹²It is no concern of mine to judge outsiders. It is for you to judge those who are inside, is it not? ¹³But outsiders are for God to judge. You must banish this evil-doer from among you. ^{*[Dt 13:6]}

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Chapter 6

RECOURSE TO THE GENTILE COURTS

^6:1Is one of you with a complaint against another so brazen as to seek judgement from sinners and not from God's holy people? ²Do you not realise that the holy people of God are to be the judges of the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you not competent for petty cases? ³Do you not realise that we shall be the judges of angels?-then quite certainly over matters of this life. ⁴But when you have matters of this life to be judged, you bring them before those who are of no account in the Church! ⁵I say this to make you ashamed of yourselves. Can it really be that it is impossible to find in the community one sensible person capable of deciding questions between brothers, ⁶and that this is why brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? ⁷No; it is a fault in you, by itself, that one of you should go to law against another at all: why do you not prefer to suffer injustice, why not prefer to be defrauded? ⁸And here you are, doing the injustice and the defrauding, and to your own brothers. ⁹Do you not realise that people who do evil will never inherit the kingdom of God? Make no mistake-the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, the self-indulgent, sodomites, ¹⁰thieves, misers, drunkards, slanderers and swindlers, none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹Some of you used to be of that kind: but you have been washed clean, you have been sanctified, and you have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and through the Spirit of our God.

SEXUAL IMMORALITY

¹²'For me everything is permissible'; ^{*[Perhaps a saying of Paul now (and 10:23) quoted against him]} maybe, but not everything does good. True, for me everything is permissible, but I am determined not to be dominated by anything. ¹³Foods are for the stomach, and the stomach is for foods; and God will destroy them both. But the body is not for sexual immorality; ¹⁴it is for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. God raised up the Lord and he will raise us up too by his power. ¹⁵Do you not realise that your bodies are members of Christ's body; do you think one can take parts of Christ's body and join them to the body of a prostitute? Out of the question! ¹⁶Or do you not realise that anyone who attaches himself to a prostitute is one body with her, since the two, as it is said, become one flesh. ^{*[Gn 2:24] 17}But anyone who attaches himself to the Lord is one spirit with him. ¹⁸Keep away from sexual immorality. All other sins that people may commit are done outside the body; but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. ¹⁹Do you not realise that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you and whom you received from God? ²⁰You are not your own property, then; you have been bought at a price. So use your body for the glory of God.

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Chapter 7

ANSWERS TO VARIOUS QUESTIONS
MARRIAGE AND VIRGINITY

^7:1Now for the questions about which you wrote. Yes, it is a good thing for a man not to touch a woman; ²yet to avoid immorality every man should have his own wife and every woman her own husband. ³The husband must give to his wife what she has a right to expect, and so too the wife to her husband. ⁴The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and in the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. ⁵You must not deprive each other, except by mutual consent for a limited time, to leave yourselves free for prayer, and to come together again afterwards; otherwise Satan may take advantage of any lack of self-control to put you to the test. ⁶I am telling you this as a concession, not an order. ⁷I should still like everyone to be as I am myself; but everyone has his own gift from God, one this kind and the next something different. ⁸To the unmarried and to widows I say: it is good for them to stay as they are, like me. ⁹But if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry, since it is better to be married than to be burnt up. ¹⁰To the married I give this ruling, and this is not mine but the Lord's: a wife must not be separated from her husband- ¹¹or if she has already left him, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband-and a husband must not divorce his wife. ¹²For other cases these instructions are my own, not the Lord's. If one of the brothers has a wife who is not a believer, and she is willing to stay with him, he should not divorce her; ¹³and if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to stay with her, she should not divorce her husband. ¹⁴You see, the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through the brother. If this were not so, your children would be unclean, whereas in fact they are holy. ¹⁵But if the unbeliever chooses to leave, then let the separation take place: in these circumstances, the brother or sister is no longer tied. But God has called you to live in peace: ¹⁶as a wife, how can you tell whether you are to be the salvation of your husband; as a husband, how can you tell whether you are to be the salvation of your wife? ¹⁷Anyway let everyone continue in the part which the Lord has allotted to him, as he was when God called him. This is the rule that I give to all the churches. ¹⁸If a man who is called has already been circumcised, then he must stay circumcised; when an uncircumcised man is called, he may not be circumcised. ¹⁹To be circumcised is of no importance, and to be uncircumcised is of no importance; what is important is the keeping of God's commandments. ²⁰Everyone should stay in whatever state he was in when he was called. ²¹So, if when you were called, you were a slave, do not think it matters-even if you have a chance of freedom, you should prefer to make full use of your condition as a slave. ²²You see, anyone who was called in the Lord while a slave, is a freeman of the Lord; and in the same way, anyone who was free when called, is a slave of Christ. ²³You have been bought at a price; do not be slaves now to any human being. ²⁴Each one of you, brothers, is to stay before God in the state in which you were called. ²⁵About people remaining virgin, I have no directions from the Lord, but I give my own opinion as a person who has been granted the Lord's mercy to be faithful. ²⁶Well then, because of the stress which is weighing upon us, the right thing seems to be this: it is good for people to stay as they are. ²⁷If you are joined to a wife, do not seek to be released; if you are freed of a wife, do not look for a wife. ²⁸However, if you do get married, that is not a sin, and it is not sinful for a virgin to enter upon ma rriage. But such people will have the hardships consequent on human nature, and I would like you to be without that. ²⁹What I mean, brothers, is that the time has become limited, and from now on, those who have spouses should live as though they had none; ³⁰and those who mourn as though they were not mourning; those who enjoy life as though they did not enjoy it; those who have been buying property as though they had no possessions; ³¹and those who are involved with the world as though they were people not engrossed in it. Because this world as we know it is passing away. ³²I should like you to have your minds free from all worry. The unmarried man gives his mind to the Lord's affairs and to how he can please the Lord; ³³but the man who is married gives his mind to the affairs of this world and to how he can please his wife, and he is divided in mind. ³⁴So, too, the unmarried woman, and the virgin, gives her mind to the Lord's affairs and to being holy in body and spirit; but the married woman gives her mind to the affairs of this world and to how she can please her husband. ³⁵I am saying this only to help you, not to put a bridle on you, but so that everything is as it should be, and you are able to give your undivided attention to the Lord. ³⁶If someone with strong passions thinks that he is behaving badly towards his fiance'e and that things should take their due course, he should follow his desires. There is no sin in it; they should marry. ³⁷But if he stands firm in his resolution, without any compulsion but with full control of his own will, and decides to let her remain as his fiance'e, then he is acting well. ³⁸In other words, he who marries his fiance'e is doing well, and he who does not, better still. ³⁹A wife is tied as long as her husband is alive. But if the husband dies, she is free to marry anybody she likes, only it must be in the Lord. ⁴⁰She would be happier if she stayed as she is, to my way of thinking-and I believe that I too have the Spirit of God.

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Chapter 8

FOOD OFFERED TO FALSE GODS
General principles

^8:1Now about food which has been dedicated to false gods. ^{* [Food, especially meat, left over from sacrifices, was offered for sale cheap in the markets.]} We are well aware that all of us have knowledge; but while knowledge puffs up, love is what builds up. ²Someone may think that he has full knowledge of something and yet not know it as well as he should; ³but someone who loves God is known by God. ⁴On the subject of eating foods dedicated to false gods, we are well aware that none of the false gods exists in reality and that there is no God other than the One. ⁵Though there are so-called gods, in the heavens or on earth-and there are plenty of gods and plenty of lords- ⁶yet for us there is only one God, the Father from whom all things come and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things come and through whom we exist.

The claims of knowledge

⁷However, not everybody has this knowledge. There are some in whose consciences false gods still play such a part that they take the food as though it had been dedicated to a god; then their conscience, being vulnerable, is defiled, ⁸But of course food cannot make us acceptable to God; we lose nothing by not eating it, we gain nothing by eating it. ⁹Only be careful that this freedom of yours does not in any way turn into an obstacle to trip those who are vulnerable. ¹⁰Suppose someone sees you, who have the knowledge, sitting eating in the temple of some false god, do you not think that his conscience, vulnerable as it is, may be encouraged to eat foods dedicated to false gods? ¹¹And then it would be through your knowledge that this brother for whom Christ died, vulnerable as he is, has been lost. ¹²So, sinning against your brothers and wounding their vulnerable consciences, you would be sinning against Christ. ¹³That is why, if food can be the cause of a brother's downfall, I will never eat meat any more, rather than cause my brother's downfall.

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Chapter 9

Paul invokes his own example

^9:1Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? ²Even if to others I am not an apostle, to you at any rate I am, for you are the seal of my apostolate in the Lord. ³To those who want to interrogate me, this is my answer. ⁴Have we not every right to eat and drink? ⁵And every right to be accompanied by a Christian wife, like the other apostles, like the brothers of the Lord, and like Cephas? ⁶Are Barnabas and I the only ones who have no right to stop working? ⁷What soldier would ever serve in the army at his own expense? And who is there who would plant a vineyard and never eat the fruit from it; or would keep a flock and not feed on the milk from his flock? ⁸Do not think that this is merely worldly wisdom. Does not the Law say exactly the same? It is written in the Law of Moses: ⁹You must not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the corn. ^{*[Dt 25:4]} Is it about oxen that God is concerned here, ¹⁰or is it not said entirely for our sake? Clearly it was written for our sake, because it is right that whoever ploughs should plough with the expectation of having his share, and whoever threshes should thresh with the expectation of having his share. ¹¹If we have sown the seed of spiritual things in you, is it too much to ask that we should receive from you a crop of material things? ¹²Others have been given such rights over you and do we not deserve more? In fact, we have never exercised this right; on the contrary, we have put up with anything rather than obstruct the gospel of Christ in any way. ¹³Do you not realise that the ministers in the Temple get their food from the Temple, and those who serve at the altar can claim their share from the altar? ¹⁴In the same way, the Lord gave the instruction that those who preach the gospel should get their living from the gospel. ¹⁵However, I have never availed myself of any rights of this kind; and I have not written this to secure such treatment for myself; I would rather die than that . . . No one shall take from me this ground of boasting. ¹⁶In fact, preaching the gospel gives me nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion and I should be in trouble if I failed to do it. ¹⁷If I did it on my own initiative I would deserve a reward; but if I do it under compulsion I am simply accepting a task entrusted to me. ¹⁸What reward do I have, then? That in my preaching I offer the gospel free of charge to avoid using the rights which the gospel allows me. ¹⁹So though I was not a slave to any human being, I put myself in slavery to all people, to win as many as I could. ²⁰To the Jews I made myself as a Jew, to win the Jews; to those under the Law as one under the Law (though I am not), in order to win those under the Law; ²¹to those outside the Law as one outside the Law, though I am not outside the Law but under Christ's law, to win those outside the Law. ²²To the weak, I made myself weak, to win the weak. I accommodated myself to people in all kinds of different situations, so that by all possible means I might bring some to salvation. ²³All this I do for the sake of the gospel, that I may share its benefits with others. ²⁴Do you not realise that, though all the runners in the stadium take part in the race, only one of them gets the prize? Run like that-to win. ²⁵Every athlete concentrates completely on training, and this is to win a wreath that will wither, whereas ours will never wither. ²⁶So that is how I run, not without a clear goal; and how I box, not wasting blows on air. ²⁷I punish my body and bring it under control, to avoid any risk that, having acted as herald for others, I myself may be disqualified.

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Chapter 10

A warning and the lessons of Israel's history

^10:1I want you to be quite certain, brothers, that our ancestors all had the cloud over them and all passed through the sea. ²In the cloud and in the sea they were all baptised into Moses; ³all ate the same spiritual food ⁴and all drank the same spiritual drink, since they drank from the spiritual rock which followed them, ^{*[In rabbinic tradition the rock of Nb 20:8 followed them]} and that rock was Christ. ⁵In spite of this, God was not pleased with most of them, and their corpses were scattered over the desert. ^{*[Nb 14:16] 6}Now these happenings were examples, for our benefit, so that we should never set our hearts, as they did, on evil things; ⁷nor are you to worship false gods, as some of them did, as it says in scripture: The people sat down to eat and drink, and afterwards got up to amuse themselves. ^{*[Ex 32:6] 8}Nor, again, are we to fall into sexual immorality; some of them did this, and twenty-three thousand met their downfall in one day. ⁹And we are not to put the Lord to the test; some of them put him to the test, and they were killed by snakes. ¹⁰Never complain; some of them complained, and they were killed by the Destroyer. ¹¹Now all these things happened to them by way of example, and they were described in writing to be a lesson for us, to whom it has fallen to live in the last days of the ages. ¹²Everyone, no matter how firmly he thinks he is standing, must be careful he does not fall. ¹³None of the trials which have come upon you is more than a human being can stand. You can trust that God will not let you be put to the test beyond your strength, but with any trial will also provide a way out by enabling you to put up with it.

Sacrificial feasts
No compromise with idolatry

¹⁴For that reason, my dear friends, have nothing to do with the worship of false gods. ¹⁵I am talking to you as sensible people; weigh up for yourselves what I have to say. ¹⁶The blessing-cup, which we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ; and the loaf of bread which we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? ¹⁷And as there is one loaf, so we, although there are many of us, are one single body, for we all share in the one loaf. ¹⁸Now compare the natural people of Israel: is it not true that those who eat the sacrifices share the altar? ¹⁹What does this mean? That the dedication of food to false gods amounts to anything? Or that false gods themselves amount to anything? ²⁰No, it does not; simply that when pagans sacrifice, what is sacrificed by them is sacrificed to demons who are not God. ^{*[Dt 32:17]} I do not want you to share with demons. ²¹You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons as well; you cannot have a share at the Lord's table and the demons' table as well. ²²Do we really want to arouse the Lord's jealousy; are we stronger than he is?

Food sacrificed to idols
Practical solutions

²³'Everything is permissible'; maybe so, but not everything does good. True, everything is permissible, but not everything builds people up. ²⁴Nobody should be looking for selfish advantage, but everybody for someone else's. ²⁵Eat anything that is sold in butchers' shops; there is no need to ask questions for conscience's sake, ²⁶since To the Lord belong the earth and all it contains. ^{*[Ps 24:1] 27}If an unbeliever invites you to a meal, go if you want to, and eat whatever is put before you; you need not ask questions of conscience first. ²⁸But if someone says to you, 'This food has been offered in sacrifice,' do not eat it, out of consideration for the person that told you, for conscience's sake- ²⁹not your own conscience, I mean, but the other person's. Why should my freedom be governed by somebody else's conscience? ³⁰Provided that I accept it with gratitude, why should I be blamed for eating food for which I give thanks? ³¹Whatever you eat, then, or drink, and whatever else you do, do it all for the glory of God. ³²Never be a cause of offence, either to Jews or to Greeks or to the Church of God, ³³just as I try to accommodate everybody in everything, not looking for my own advantage, but for the advantage of everybody else, so that they may be saved.

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Chapter 11

^11:1Take me as your pattern, just as I take Christ for mine.

DECORUM IN PUBLIC WORSHIP
Women's behaviour at services

²I congratulate you for remembering me so consistently and for maintaining the traditions exactly as I passed them on to you. ³But I should like you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. ⁴For any man to pray or to prophesy with his head covered shows disrespect for his head. ⁵And for a woman to pray or prophesy with her head uncovered shows disrespect for her head; it is exactly the same as if she had her hair shaved off. ⁶Indeed, if a woman does go without a veil, she should have her hair cut off too; but if it is a shameful thing for a woman to have her hair cut off or shaved off, then she should wear a veil. ⁷But for a man it is not right to have his head covered, since he is the image of God and reflects God's glory; but woman is the reflection of man's glory. ⁸For man did not come from woman; no, woman came from man; ⁹nor was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man: ¹⁰and this is why it is right for a woman to wear on her head a sign of the authority over her, because of the angels. ¹¹However, in the Lord, though woman is nothing without man, man is nothing without woman; ¹²and though woman came from man, so does every man come from a woman, and everything comes from God. ¹³Decide for yourselves: does it seem fitting that a woman should pray to God without a veil? ¹⁴Does not nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, ¹⁵but when a woman has long hair, it is her glory? After all, her hair was given to her to be a covering. ¹⁶If anyone wants to be contentious, I say that we have no such custom, nor do any of the churches of God.

The Lord's Supper

¹⁷Now that I am on the subject of instructions, I cannot congratulate you on the meetings you hold; they do more harm than good. ¹⁸In the first place, I hear that when you all come together in your assembly, there are separate factions among you, and to some extent I believe it. ¹⁹It is no bad thing, either, that there should be differing groups among you so that those who are to be trusted among you can be clearly recognised. ²⁰So, when you meet together, it is not the Lord's Supper that you eat; ²¹for when the eating begins, each one of you has his own supper first, and there is one going hungry while another is getting drunk. ²²Surely you have homes for doing your eating and drinking in? Or have you such disregard for God's assembly that you can put to shame those who have nothing? What am I to say to you? Congratulate you? On this I cannot congratulate you. ²³For the tradition I received ^{*[cf. 15:3]} from the Lord and also handed on to you is that on the night he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread, ²⁴and after he had given thanks, he broke it, and he said, 'This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.' ²⁵And in the same way, with the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial of me.' ²⁶Whenever you eat this bread, then, and drink this cup, you are proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes. ²⁷Therefore anyone who eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily is answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. ²⁸Everyone is to examine himself and only then eat of the bread or drink from the cup; ²⁹because a person who eats and drinks without recognising the body is eating and drinking his own condemnation. ³⁰That is why many of you are weak and ill and a good number have died. ³¹If we were critical of ourselves we would not be condemned, ³²but when we are judged by the Lord, we are corrected by the Lord to save us from being condemned along with the world. ³³So then, my brothers, when you meet for the Meal, wait for each other; ³⁴anyone who is hungry should eat at home. Then your meeting will not bring your condemnation. The other matters I shall arrange when I come.

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Chapter 12

Spiritual gifts

^12:1About the gifts of the Spirit, brothers, I want you to be quite certain. ²You remember that, when you were pagans, you were irresistibly drawn to inarticulate heathen gods. ³Because of that, I want to make it quite clear to you that no one who says 'A curse on Jesus' can be speaking in the Spirit of God, and nobody is able to say, 'Jesus is Lord' except in the Holy Spirit.

The variety and the unity of gifts

⁴There are many different gifts, but it is always the same Spirit; ⁵there are many different ways of serving, but it is always the same Lord. ⁶There are many different forms of activity, but in everybody it is the same God who is at work in them all. ⁷The particular manifestation of the Spirit granted to each one is to be used for the general good. ⁸To one is given from the Spirit the gift of utterance expressing wisdom; to another the gift of utterance expressing knowledge, in accordance with the same Spirit; ⁹to another, faith, from the same Spirit; and to another, the gifts of healing, through this one Spirit; ¹⁰to another, the working of miracles; to another, prophecy; to another, the power of distinguishing spirits; to one, the gift of different tongues and to another, the interpretation of tongues. ¹¹But at work in all these is one and the same Spirit, distributing them at will to each individual.

The analogy of the body

¹²For as with the human body which is a unity although it has many parts-all the parts of the body, though many, still making up one single body-so it is with Christ. ¹³We were baptised into one body in a single Spirit, Jews as well as Greeks, slaves as well as free men, and we were all given the same Spirit to drink. ¹⁴And indeed the body consists not of one member but of many. ¹⁵If the foot were to say, 'I am not a hand and so I do not belong to the body,' it does not belong to the body any the less for that. ¹⁶Or if the ear were to say, 'I am not an eye, and so I do not belong to the body,' that would not stop its belonging to the body. ¹⁷If the whole body were just an eye, how would there be any hearing? If the whole body were hearing, how would there be any smelling? ¹⁸As it is, God has put all the separate parts into the body as he chose. ¹⁹If they were all the same part, how could it be a body? ²⁰As it is, the parts are many but the body is one. ²¹The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you,' and nor can the head say to the feet, 'I have no need of you.' ²²What is more, it is precisely the parts of the body that seem to be the weakest which are the indispensable ones. ²³It is the parts of the body which we consider least dignified that we surround with the greatest dignity; and our less presentable parts are given greater presentability ²⁴which our presentable parts do not need. God has composed the body so that greater dignity is given to the parts which were without it, ²⁵and so that there may not be disagreements inside the body but each part may be equally concerned for all the others. ²⁶If one part is hurt, all the parts share its pain. And if one part is honoured, all the parts share its joy. ²⁷Now Christ's body is yourselves, each of you with a part to play in the whole. ²⁸And those whom God has appointed in the Church are, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers; after them, miraculous powers, then gifts of healing, helpful acts, guidance, various kinds of tongues. ²⁹Are all of them apostles? Or all prophets? Or all teachers? Or all miracle-workers? ³⁰Do all have the gifts of healing? Do all of them speak in tongues and all interpret them?

The order of importance in spiritual gifts
Hymn to Love

³¹Set your mind on the higher gifts. And now I am going to put before you the best way of all.

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Chapter 13

^13:1Though I command languages both human and angelic-if I speak without love, I am no more than a gong booming or a cymbal clashing. ²And though I have the power of prophecy, to penetrate all mysteries and knowledge, and though I have all the faith necessary to move mountains-if I am without love, I am nothing. ³Though I should give away to the poor all that I possess, and even give up my body to be burned-if I am without love, it will do me no good whatever. ⁴Love is always patient and kind; love is never jealous; love is not boastful or conceited, ⁵it is never rude and never seeks its own advantage, it does not take offence or store up grievances. ⁶Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but finds its joy in the truth. ⁷It is always ready to make allowances, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever comes. ⁸Love never comes to an end. But if there are prophecies, they will be done away with; if tongues, they will fall silent; and if knowledge, it will be done away with. ⁹For we know only imperfectly, and we prophesy imperfectly; ¹⁰but once perfection comes, all imperfect things will be done away with. ¹¹When I was a child, I used to talk like a child, and see things as a child does, and think like a child; but now that I have become an adult, I have finished with all childish ways. ¹²Now we see only reflections in a mirror, mere riddles, but then we shall be seeing face to face. Now I can know only imperfectly; but then I shall know just as fully as I am myself known. ¹³As it is, these remain: faith, hope and love, the three of them; and the greatest of them is love.

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Chapter 14

Spiritual gifts: their respective importance in the community

^14:1Make love your aim; but be eager, too, for spiritual gifts, and especially for prophesying. ²Those who speak in a tongue speak to God, but not to other people, because nobody understands them; they are speaking in the Spirit and the meaning is hidden. ³On the other hand, someone who prophesies speaks to other people, building them up and giving them encouragement and reassurance. ⁴Those who speak in a tongue may build themselves up, but those who prophesy build up the community. ⁵While I should like you all to speak in tongues, I would much rather you could prophesy; since those who prophesy are of greater importance than those who speak in tongues, unless they can interpret what they say so that the church is built up by it. ⁶Now suppose, brothers, I come to you and speak in tongues, what good shall I do you if my speaking provides no revelation or knowledge or prophecy or instruction? ⁷It is the same with an inanimate musical instrument. If it does not make any distinction between notes, how can one recognise what is being played on flute or lyre? ⁸If the trumpet sounds a call which is unrecognisable, who is going to get ready for the attack? ⁹It is the same with you: if you do not use your tongue to produce speech that can be readily understood, how can anyone know what you are saying? You will be talking to the air. ¹⁰However many the languages used in the world, all of them use sound; ¹¹but if I do not understand the meaning of the sound, I am a barbarian ^{*[i.e. someone who does not understand Gk]} to the person who is speaking, and the speaker is a barbarian to me. ¹²So with you, as you are eager to have spiritual powers, aim to be rich in those which build up the community. ¹³That is why anybody who speaks in a tongue must pray that he may be given the interpretation. ¹⁴For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit may be praying but my mind derives no fruit from it. ¹⁵What then? I shall pray with the spirit, but I shall pray with the mind as well: I shall sing praises with the spirit and I shall sing praises with the mind as well. ¹⁶Otherwise, if you say your blessing only with the spirit, how is the uninitiated person going to answer 'Amen' to your thanksgiving, without understanding what you are saying? ¹⁷You may be making your thanksgiving well, but the other person is not built up at all. ¹⁸I thank God that I speak with tongues more than any of you; ¹⁹all the same, when I am in the assembly I would rather say five words with my mind, to instruct others as well, than ten thousand words in a tongue. ²⁰Brothers, do not remain children in your thinking; infants in wickedness-agreed, but in your thinking grown-ups. ²¹It says in the written Law: In strange tongues and in a foreign language I will talk to this nation, and even so they will refuse to listen, ^{*[Is 28:11-12]} says the Lord. ²²So then, strange languages are significant not for believers, but for unbelievers; whereas on the other hand, prophesying is not for unbelievers, but for believers. ²³Suppose that, if the whole congregation were meeting and all of them speaking in tongues, and some uninitiated people or unbelievers were to come in, don't you think they would say that you were all raving? ²⁴But if you were all prophesying when an unbeliever or someone uninitiated came in, he would find himself put to the test by all and judged by all ²⁵and the secrets of his heart revealed; and so he would fall down on his face and worship God, declaring that God is indeed among you. ^{*[Is 45:14]}

Regulating spiritual gifts

²⁶Then what should it be like, brothers? When you come together each of you brings a psalm or some instruction or a revelation, or speaks in a tongue or gives an interpretation. Let all these things be done in a way that will build up the community. ²⁷If there are to be any people speaking in a tongue, then let there be only two, or at the most three, and those one at a time, and let one of these interpret. ²⁸If there is no interpreter, then let each of them be quiet in the assembly, and speak only to himself and God. ²⁹Let two prophets, or three, speak while the rest weigh their words; ³⁰and if a revelation comes to someone else who is sitting by, the speaker should stop speaking. ³¹You can all prophesy, but one at a time, then all will learn something and all receive encouragement. ³²The prophetic spirit is to be under the prophets' control, ³³for God is a God not of disorder but of peace. As in all the churches of God's holy people, ³⁴women are to remain quiet in the assemblies, since they have no permission to speak: theirs is a subordinate part, as the Law itself says. ³⁵If there is anything they want to know, they should ask their husbands at home: it is shameful for a woman to speak in the assembly. ³⁶Do you really think that you are the source of the word of God? Or that you are the only people to whom it has come? ³⁷Anyone who claims to be a prophet, or to have any spiritual powers must recognise that what I am writing to you is a commandment from the Lord. ³⁸If anyone does not recognise this, it is because that person is not recognised himself. ³⁹So, my brothers, be eager to prophesy, and do not suppress the gift of speaking in tongues. ⁴⁰But make sure that everything is done in a proper and orderly fashion.

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Chapter 15

THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD
The fact of the resurrection

^15:1I want to make quite clear to you, brothers, what the message of the gospel that I preached to you is; you accepted it and took your stand on it, ²and you are saved by it, if you keep to the message I preached to you; otherwise your coming to believe was in vain. ³The tradition I handed on to you in the first place, a tradition which I had myself received, ^{*[cf. 11:23]} was that Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the scriptures, ⁴and that he was buried; and that on the third day, he was raised to life, in accordance with the scriptures; ⁵and that he appeared to Cephas; and later to the Twelve; ⁶and next he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still with us, though some have fallen asleep; ⁷then he appeared to James, and then to all the apostles. ⁸Last of all he appeared to me too, as though I was a child born abnormally. ⁹For I am the least of the apostles and am not really fit to be called an apostle, because I had been persecuting the Church of God; ¹⁰but what I am now, I am through the grace of God, and the grace which was given to me has not been wasted. Indeed, I have worked harder than all the others-not I, but the grace of God which is with me. ¹¹Anyway, whether it was they or I, this is what we preach and what you believed. ¹²Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you be saying that there is no resurrection of the dead? ¹³If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ cannot have been raised either, ¹⁴and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is without substance, and so is your faith. ¹⁵What is more, we have proved to be false witnesses to God, for testifying against God that he raised Christ to life when he did not raise him-if it is true that the dead are not raised. ¹⁶For, if the dead are not raised, neither is Christ; ¹⁷and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is pointless and you have not, after all, been released from your sins. ¹⁸In addition, those who have fallen asleep in Christ are utterly lost. ¹⁹If our hope in Christ has been for this life only, we are of all people the most pitiable. ²⁰In fact, however, Christ has been raised from the dead, as the first-fruits of all who have fallen asleep. ²¹As it was by one man that death came, so through one man has come the resurrection of the dead. ²²Just as all die in Adam, so in Christ all will be brought to life; ²³but all of them in their proper order: Christ the first-fruits, and next, at his coming, those who belong to him. ²⁴After that will come the end, when he will hand over the kingdom to God the Father, having abolished every principality, every ruling force and power. ²⁵For he is to be king until he has made his enemies his footstool, ²⁶and the last of the enemies to be done away with is death, for he has put all things under his feet. ^{*[Ps 110:1] 27}But when it is said everything is subjected, this obviously cannot include the One who subjected everything to him. ²⁸When everything has been subjected to him, then the Son himself will be subjected to the One who has subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all. ²⁹Otherwise, what are people up to who have themselves baptised on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, what is the point of being baptised on their behalf? ³⁰And what about us? Why should we endanger ourselves every hour of our lives? ³¹I swear by the pride that I take in you, in Christ Jesus our Lord, that I face death every day. ³²If I fought wild animals at Ephesus in a purely human perspective, what had I to gain by it? ³³If the dead are not going to be raised, then Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall be dead. ^{*[Is 22:13] 34}So do not let anyone lead you astray, 'Bad company corrupts good ways.' ^{*[A proverb found also in Menander's Thais]} Wake up from your stupor as you should and leave sin alone; some of you have no understanding of God; I tell you this to instil some shame in you.

The manner of the resurrection

³⁵Someone may ask: How are dead people raised, and what sort of body do they have when they come? ³⁶How foolish! What you sow must die before it is given new life; ³⁷and what you sow is not the body that is to be, but only a bare grain, of wheat I dare say, or some other kind; ³⁸it is God who gives it the sort of body that he has chosen for it, and for each kind of seed its own kind of body. ³⁹Not all flesh is the same flesh: there is human flesh; animals have another kind of flesh, birds another and fish yet another. ⁴⁰Then there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies; the heavenly have a splendour of their own, and the earthly a different splendour. ⁴¹The sun has its own splendour, the moon another splendour, and the stars yet another splendour; and the stars differ among themselves in splendour. ⁴²It is the same too with the resurrection of the dead: what is sown is perishable, but what is raised is imperishable; ⁴³what is sown is contemptible but what is raised is glorious; what is sown is weak, but what is raised is powerful; ⁴⁴what is sown is a natural body, and what is raised is a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is a spiritual body too. ⁴⁵So the first man, Adam, as scripture says, became a living soul; ^{*[Gn 2:7]} and the last Adam has become a life-giving spirit. ⁴⁶But first came the natural body, not the spiritual one; that came only afterwards. ⁴⁷The first man, being made of earth, is earthly by nature; the second man is from heaven. ⁴⁸The earthly man is the pattern for earthly people, the heavenly man for heavenly ones. ⁴⁹And as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so we shall bear the likeness of the heavenly one. ⁵⁰What I am saying, brothers, is that mere human nature cannot inherit the kingdom of God: what is perishable cannot inherit what is imperishable. ⁵¹Now I am going to tell you a mystery: we are not all going to fall asleep, ⁵²but we are all going to be changed, instantly, in the twinkling of an eye, when the last trumpet sounds. The trumpet is going to sound, and then the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed, ⁵³because this perishable nature of ours must put on imperishability, this mortal nature must put on immortality.

A hymn of triumph. Conclusion

⁵⁴And after this perishable nature has put on imperishability and this mortal nature has put on immortality, then will the words of scripture come true: Death is swallowed up in victory. ⁵⁵Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting? ^{*[A free version of Is 25:8 and Hos 13:14] 56}The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin comes from the Law. ⁵⁷Thank God, then, for giving us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. ⁵⁸So, my dear brothers, keep firm and immovable, always abounding in energy for the Lord's work, being sure that in the Lord none of your labours is wasted.

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Chapter 16

Commendations. Greetings

^16:1Now about the collection for God's holy people; ^{*[cf. Ac 24:17; 2 Co 8-9]} you are to do the same as I prescribed for the churches in Galatia. ²On the first day of the week, each of you should put aside and reserve as much as each can spare; do not delay the collection till I arrive. ³When I come, I will send to Jerusalem with letters of introduction those people you approve to deliver your gift; ⁴if it is worth my going too, they can travel with me. ⁵In any case, I shall be coming to you after I have passed through Macedonia, as I have to go through Macedonia; ⁶and I may be staying some time with you, perhaps wintering, so that you can start me on my next journey, wherever I may be going. ⁷I do not want to make only a passing visit to you, and I am hoping to spend quite a time with you, the Lord permitting. ⁸But I shall remain at Ephesus until Pentecost, ⁹for a very promising door is standing wide open to me and there are many against us. ¹⁰If Timothy comes, make sure that he has nothing to fear from you; he is doing the Lord's work, just as I am, ¹¹and nobody is to underrate him. Start him off in peace on his journey to come on to me: the brothers and I are waiting for him. ¹²As for our brother Apollos, I urged him earnestly to come to you with the brothers, but he was quite firm that he did not want to go yet, and he will come when he finds an opportunity. ¹³Be vigilant, stay firm in the faith, be brave and strong. ¹⁴Let everything you do be done in love. ¹⁵There is something else I must urge you to do, brothers. You know how Stephanas' family have been the first-fruits of Achaia and have devoted themselves to the service of God's holy people; ¹⁶I ask you in turn to put yourselves at the service of people like this and all that work with them in this arduous task. ¹⁷I am delighted that Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus have arrived; they have made up for your not being here. ¹⁸They have set my mind at rest, just as they did yours; you should appreciate people like them. ¹⁹The churches of Asia send their greetings. Aquila and Prisca send their best wishes in the Lord, together with the church that meets in their house. ²⁰All the brothers send their greetings. Greet one another with the holy kiss. ²¹This greeting is in my own hand-PAUL. ²²If there is anyone who does not love the Lord, a curse on such a one. Maran atha. ^{* [Aram. 'The Lord is coming' (or perhaps 'Lord, come').] 23}The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you. ²⁴My love is with you all in Christ Jesus.

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