| Chapter text (World English Bible version) |  |
| 1 Dare any of you, having a matter against his neighbour, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? 2 Don’t you know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? 3 Don’t you know that we will judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life? | Why does Paul question believers taking their disputes before secular courts instead of settling them within the church? |
| 4 If then you have to judge things pertaining to this life, do you set them to judge who are of no account in the assembly? 5 I say this to move you to shame. Isn’t there even one wise man amongst you who would be able to decide between his brothers? 6 But brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers! 7 Therefore it is already altogether a defect in you that you have lawsuits one with another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? 8 No, but you yourselves do wrong and defraud, and that against your brothers. | What concern does Paul raise about believers wronging and suing one another, and what alternative attitude does he say would be better? |
| 9 Or don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s Kingdom? Don’t be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor extortionists, will inherit God’s Kingdom. 11 Some of you were such, but you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and in the Spirit of our God. | What list of behaviors does Paul warn will keep people from inheriting the kingdom of God, and how does he describe the believers’ past and present? |
| 12 “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are expedient. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be brought under the power of anything. 13 “Foods for the belly, and the belly for foods,” but God will bring to nothing both it and them. But the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. | How does Paul challenge the idea that “all things are lawful,” and what point does he make using food and the stomach? |
| 14 Now God raised up the Lord, and will also raise us up by his power. 15 Don’t you know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! | What does Paul say about God raising up the Lord and the believers’ bodies being members of Christ? |
16 Or don’t you know that he who is joined to a prostitute is one body? For, “The two”, he says, “will become one flesh.”* 17 But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. 18 Flee sexual immorality! “Every sin that a man does is outside the body,” but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. * Quotation from Genesis 2 v 24 | How does Paul explain the seriousness of sexual sin using the idea of becoming “one flesh,” and what command does he give? |
| 19 Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. | What does Paul remind believers about their bodies being temples of the Holy Spirit, and how should this truth affect how they live? |
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