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 Corinthians 6
1¶ Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go unto judgment before the unjust, and not before the saints?
2Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?
3Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more the things that pertain to this life?
4If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set as judges the most humble who are in the congregation. {Gr. ekklesia – called out ones}
5I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brothers?
6But brother goes to judgment against brother, and that before the unbelievers.
7Now therefore there is certainly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather suffer the wrong? why do ye not rather be defrauded?
8But ye do wrong and defraud and do this to your brothers.
9¶ Know ye not that the unjust shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor homosexuals
10nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God.
11And such were some of you, but now ye are washed, but now ye are sanctified, but now ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and in the Spirit of our God.
12¶ All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient; all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.
13Foods are for the belly, and the belly for foods; but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.
14And God, who raised up the Lord, will also raise up us by his own power.
15Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot? In no wise.
16What? know ye not that he who is joined to the harlot is one body with her? For they shall be, saith he, two in one flesh.
17But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.
18Flee fornication. Any other sin that a man does is outside the body, but he that commits fornication sins against his own body.
19What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom ye have of God, and that ye are not your own?
20For ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
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The Jubilee Bible 2000 (JUB) by Ransom Press International