Lawsuits between Believers

¹ Does anyone among you, if he¹ has a matter against someone else, dare to go to court before the unrighteous, and not before the saints?

1. *Here “if” is supplied as a component of the participle (“has”) which is understood as conditional

² Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if by you the world is judged, are you unworthy of the most insignificant courts?

³ Do you not know that we will judge angels, not to mention ordinary matters?

⁴ Therefore, if you have courts with regard to ordinary matters, do you seat¹ these despised people in the church?

1. Or “seat” (imperative); the Greek verb can be either indicative mood or imperative mood by its form

⁵ I say this to your shame. So is there not anyone wise among you who will be able to render a decision between his brothers?

⁶ But brother goes to court with brother, and this before unbelievers!

⁷ Therefore it is already completely a loss for you that you have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded?

⁸ But you wrong and defraud, and do this to brothers!

⁹ Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Neither sexually immoral people, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor passive homosexual partners, nor dominant homosexual partners,

¹⁰ nor thieves, nor greedy persons, not drunkards, not abusive persons, not swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

¹¹ And some of you were these things, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus¹ and by the Spirit of our God.

1. Some manuscripts have “of the Lord Jesus Christ”

Avoid Sexual Immorality

¹² All things are permitted for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are permitted for me, but I will not be controlled by anything.

¹³ Food is for the stomach, and the stomach for food, but God will abolish ⌞both of them⌟¹. Now the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

1. Literally “both this and these”

¹⁴ And God both raised up the Lord and will raise us up by his power.

¹⁵ Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Therefore, shall I take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be!

¹⁶ Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For it says, “The two will become one flesh.”¹

1. A quotation from Gen 2:24

¹⁷ But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with him.

¹⁸ Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a person commits is outside his body, but the one who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.

¹⁹ Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?

²⁰ For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God with your body.