Settle Lawsuits among Believers

1If one of you has a grievance against an opponent, does he dare to go to law before irreligious men and not before God's people? 2Do you not know that God's people will sit in judgement upon the world? And if you are the court before which the world is to be judged, are you unfit to deal with these petty matters? 3Do you not know that we are to sit in judgement upon angels—to say nothing of things belonging to this life? 4If therefore you have things belonging to this life which need to be decided, is it men who are absolutely nothing in the Church—is it *they* whom you make your judges? 5I say this to put you to shame. Has it come to this, that there does not exist among you a single wise man competent to decide between a man and his brother, 6but brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers?

7To say no more, then, it is altogether a defect in you that you have law-suits with one another. Why not rather endure injustice? Why not rather submit to being defrauded? 8On the contrary you yourselves inflict injustice and fraud, and upon brethren too.

9Do you not know that unrighteous men will not inherit God's Kingdom? Cherish no delusion here. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor any who are guilty of unnatural crime, 10nor theives, nor avaricious people, nor any who are addicted to hard drinking, to abusive language or to greed of gain, will inherit God's Kingdom. 11And all this describes what some of you were. But now you have had every stain washed off: now you have been set apart as holy: now you have been pronounced free from guilt; in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and through the Spirit of our God.

Our Bodies are Members of Christ

12Everything is allowable to me, but not everything is profitable. Everything is allowable to me, but to nothing will I become a slave. 13Food of all kinds is meant for the stomach, and the stomach is meant for food, and God will cause both of them to perish. Yet the body does not exist for the purpose of fornication, but for the Master's service, and the Master exists for the body; 14and as God by His power raised the Master to life, so He will also raise us up. 15Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them the members of a prostitute? No, indeed. 16Or do you not know that a man who has to do with a prostitute is one with her in body? For God says, "The two shall become one." 17But he who is in union with the Master is one with Him in spirit.

The Body is a Temple of the Holy Spirit

(Romans 12:1-8; 1 Corinthians 3:16-18)

18Flee from fornication. Any other sin that a human being commits lies outside the body; but he who commits fornication sins against his own body. 19Or do you not know that your bodies are a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is within you—the Spirit whom you have from God? 20And you are not your own, for you have been redeemed at infinite cost. Therefore glorify God in your bodies.