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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Translated in 1916, published in 1937.
1 Corinthians 6
6
1Does anyone of you having a dispute with an Ach b'Moshiach dare to be judged before the resha'im (unrighteous, evildoers) and not before the Bet Din of the Kedoshim?
2Or do you not have da'as that the Kedoshim will sit in mishpat over the Olam Hazeh? And if the Olam Hazeh is to be judged by you, are you incompetent dayanim to try the smallest cases?
3Do you lack da'as that the malachim will come before our Bet Din? Not to mention the things of Olam Hazeh!
4If, then, you have cases concerning matters of the Olam Hazeh, how could you appoint as your Bet Din dayanim men who have no standing in the kehillah?
5I speak to your bushah (shame). Is there not among you even one chacham (wise man) who will be able to sit in mishpat between his Achim b'Moshiach?
6But an Ach b'Moshiach takes another Ach b'Moshiach to court, and this before the courtroom of Apikorosim (Unbelievers)?
7Already, therefore, it is a total defeat for you, that you have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be cheated?
8But you yourselves do wrong and practice hona'ah (cheating), and this to your Achim b'Moshiach.
9Or do you not have da'as that the resha'im (unrighteous ones) will not inherit the Malchut Hashem? Do not be deceived! Neither zannayim (fornicators), nor ovdei elilim (idolaters), nor mena'afim (adulterers), nor effeminate call boys nor homosexuals,#6:9 Job 13:9; Lv 18:20; Dt 22:22; Lv 18:22
10Nor ganavim (thieves), nor kamtzanim (misers), nor shikkorim (drunkards), nor megadefim (revilers), nor the ones doing hona'ah (swindling) — none of these will inherit the Malchut Hashem.
11And some of you were these things. But you were washed and made tehorim (clean), you were made to be Am Kadosh, you were made to be yitzdak im Hashem in the name of Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach Yehoshua Adoneinu and in the Ruach Hakodesh of Eloheinu.
12“All things to me are proper!”#6:12 1C 10:23 But not all things are beneficial. “All things to me are proper!” But I will not be mastered by anything.
13“Okhel (food) for the stomach and the stomach for okhel, but Hashem will destroy both one and the other;”#6:13 1C 1:8; 3:13; 5:5 but the body is not for zenut but for Hashem, and Hashem for the body.
14And Hashem brought about the Techiyah from HaMesim for Moshiach Adoneinu and will also bring about the Techiyas HaMesim for us through His gevurah (power).
15Do you not have da'as that your gufot (bodies) are evarim (members, limbs) of Moshiach? Should I then take the evarim (members) of Moshiach and make them evarim (members) of a zonah (prostitute)? Chas v'Shalom! (G-d forbid!)
16Or do you not have da'as that of the one joining himself to a zonah, that V'HAYU L'VASAR ECHAD (And they will be as one flesh)?#6:16 Gn 2:24
17But the one with deveykus#6:17 Dt 11:22 (cleaving, attachment) to Hashem has achdus (union) in the Ruach Hakodesh with Elohim.
18Flee zenut!#6:18 Prov 6:23—7:27 “Every chet is outside the body,” (you say). But the one guilty of zenut commits chet against the body itself.
19Or have you no da'as that your body is a Heikhal Hashem of the Ruach Hakodesh in you, whom you have from Hashem, and you are not your own?
20For [the Geulah redemption of] you [from the Golus of Chet] was purchased with a price; therefore, bring kavod to Hashem with your gufot.#6:20 Ps 74:2
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THE ORTHODOX JEWISH BIBLE
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