How dare any of you who has a dispute with another go to court
before the unrighteous and not before the saints!
Do you not understand that
the saints are going to govern and manage the world?
If you are going to
manage the world, are you not able to judge less important matters?
3 Do you
not understand that we will be judging[1027]
angels? Then why not matters
related to this present life!
4 So if you have such disputes, do
you take them to people who have no standing in the church?
5 I say
this to shame you. Is there no one among you wise enough to decide between fellow believers?
6 Instead does a believer sue a believer,
and before unbelievers?
7 Actually it is already a defeat for you that you have lawsuits with each
other. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather allow yourself to be
defrauded? 8 No, but you yourselves do wrong and defraud, even to your fellow
believers. 9 Do you not understand that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom
of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor
adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals,
10 nor thieves, nor greedy,
nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swindlers will inherit the Kingdom of God.
[1028] 11 Some of you were such people,[1029]
but you were washed; you were
made holy; you were made right in the name of the lord Jesus Messiah and in
the spirit of our God.
12 “All things are lawful for me” — but not everything is helpful. “All
things are lawful for me” — but I will not be controlled by anything. 13 “Food
is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with
both of them.” The body is not meant for sexual immorality but for the lord,
and the lord for the body.
14 God not only has resurrected the lord, but also
will resurrect us by His power.
15 Do you not understand that your bodies are
members of the Messiah? Should I take the members of the Messiah and make
them members of a prostitute? Absolutely not!
16 Or do you not understand that a
person who joins himself to a prostitute becomes “one body” with her?[1030]
For He says, “The two will become one flesh.”
17 But the one who joins
himself to the lord becomes one spirit with him.
18 Avoid all sexual immorality. All other sins which people commit are outside the body, but the sexually
immoral person sins against his own body.
19 Or do you not understand that your
body is a temple[1031]
of the holy spirit which is in you, which you have from
God? You are not your own,
20 because you have been bought with a price. So
glorify God with your body.
Commentary
1 Corinthians
[1026]
This is the destiny of the true believers and it is taught throughout the NT and OT, most
obviously in Dan. 2:44; 7:14, 18, 22, 27: “all nations will be subject to the saints.” So also Matt. 19:28;
Luke 22:28-30; Rev. 2:26; 3:21; 5:10; 20:1-6; 2 Tim. 2:12. For Paul this was an elementary truth of the
faith which they should have fully understood — hence his surprise at their ignorance. In popular
thinking today all this has been replaced by a very non-specific reward for disembodied souls in
heaven. The Kingdom of the LORD should be referred always to 2 Chron. 13:8. It is to be a political
Kingdom and empire.
[1027]
Or perhaps managing, governing.
[1028]
The popular language about “going to heaven” is found nowhere in the Bible. The Christian
destiny is always to enter and inherit the future Kingdom of God when Jesus returns, and rule with him
in it. The pagan notion of the disembodied immortal soul has been responsible for suppressing the real
Christian view of the future. The clarity of the genuine Christian hope is eliminated. Love and faith, as
a consequence, are diminished (Col. 1:4-5).
[1029]
Showing that former homosexuals, too, can recover from that and any other sin.
[1030]
A severe warning also against any involvement with pornography.
[1031]
When Paul introduces the idea of the believer as a temple, he refers to “a temple.” When
referring to a literal temple building he calls it “the temple of God” in which the Man of Sin, the
Antichrist will sit (2 Thess. 2:1-12; Dan. 9:26-27).
1 Corinthians