Embarrassing Jesus
1 If anyone among you has a legal dispute with another, you actually dare to take your case before the unjust and not the holy ones. 2 What!? Do you not know that the holy ones will judge the world? And if you will judge the world, can’t you handle even small-claims court? 3 You don’t seem to realize that we will judge the angels; how can you not judge the ordinary things of life? 4 Wouldn’t the least among you make better judges than outsiders?
5 Now I am saying this to shame you! There is not one wise person among you who is able to judge between fellow believers, 6 so one sues another— and in front of unbelievers! 7 So you have already utterly failed because of these lawsuits among yourselves. Wouldn’t it be better to be wronged? Wouldn’t it be better to be cheated? 8 But you are injuring and cheating your own sisters and brothers!
9 What!? Do you not understand that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be fooled; the promiscuous, idolaters, adulterers, perverts, homosexuals, 10 thieves, the greedy, drunkards, trash talkers, extortioners— these will not inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that’s what some of you were. But you were washed, you were made holy, you were acquitted in the Name of the Master Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
Sinning against one’s own body
12 “I can do whatever I want,” but not everything is good for me. “I can do whatever I want,” but I will not be mastered by anything. 13 “Food for the belly and the belly for food, and God will discard them both”. Yet the body is not for harlotry but for the Master, and the Master for the body. 14 Now God raised the Master and will raise us through his power.
15 Do you not know that your bodies are parts of Christ? And should I take those parts of Christ away and make them parts of a prostitute? Absolutely not! 16 What!? Do you not know that when someone joins to a prostitute the two of them become one flesh? It is written explicitly, “The two will be one flesh.” 17 Yet the one joining to the Master is one with him in spirit.
18 So run from harlotry. Every other sin a person commits is outside of their body, but the one who is promiscuous sins against their own body. 19 Don’t you realize that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit in you, which you got from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a steep price. So then: honor God with your body.