1 Corinthians 3

1 But for right now, friends, I'm completely frustrated by your unspiritual dealings with each other and with God. You're acting like infants in relation to Christ,2 capable of nothing much more than nursing at the breast. Well, then, I'll nurse you since you don't seem capable of anything more.3 As long as you grab for what makes you feel good or makes you look important, are you really much different than a babe at the breast, content only when everything's going your way?4 When one of you says, "I'm on Paul's side," and another says, "I'm for Apollos," aren't you being totally infantile?

5 Who do you think Paul is, anyway? Or Apollos, for that matter? Servants, both of us-servants who waited on you as you gradually learned to entrust your lives to our mutual Master. We each carried out our servant assignment.6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered the plants, but God made you grow.7 It's not the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the center of this process but God, who makes things grow.8 Planting and watering are menial servant jobs at minimum wages.

9 What makes them worth doing is the God we are serving. You happen to be God's field in which we are working.10 Using the gift God gave me as a good architect, I designed blueprints; Apollos is putting up the walls. Let each carpenter who comes on the job take care to build on the foundation!11 Remember, there is only one foundation, the one already laid: Jesus Christ.12 Take particular care in picking out your building materials.13 Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you'll be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won't get by with a thing.14 If your work passes inspection, fine;15 if it doesn't, your part of the building will be torn out and started over. But you won't be torn out; you'll survive-but just barely.

16 You realize, don't you, that you are the temple of God, and God himself is present in you?17 No one will get by with vandalizing God's temple, you can be sure of that. God's temple is sacred-and you, remember, are the temple.

18 Don't fool yourself. Don't think that you can be wise merely by being up-to-date with the times.19 Be God's fool-that's the path to true wisdom. What the world calls smart, God calls stupid. It's written in Scripture, He exposes the chicanery of the chic.20 The Master sees through the smoke screens of the know-it-alls.

21 I don't want to hear any of you bragging about yourself or anyone else. Everything is already yours as a gift -22 Paul, Apollos, Peter, the world, life, death, the present, the future-all of it is yours,23 and you are privileged to be in union with Christ, who is in union with God.

1 Corinthians 4

1 Don't imagine us leaders to be something we aren't. We are servants of Christ, not his masters. We are guides into God's most sublime secrets, not security guards posted to protect them.2 The requirements for a good guide are reliability and accurate knowledge.3 It matters very little to me what you think of me, even less where I rank in popular opinion. I don't even rank myself. Comparisons in these matters are pointless.4 I'm not aware of anything that would disqualify me from being a good guide for you, but that doesn't mean much. The Master makes that judgment.

5 So don't get ahead of the Master and jump to conclusions with your judgments before all the evidence is in. When he comes, he will bring out in the open and place in evidence all kinds of things we never even dreamed of-inner motives and purposes and prayers. Only then will any one of us get to hear the "Well done!" of God.

6 All I'm doing right now, friends, is showing how these things pertain to Apollos and me so that you will learn restraint and not rush into making judgments without knowing all the facts. It's important to look at things from God's point of view. I would rather not see you inflating or deflating reputations based on mere hearsay.

7 For who do you know that really knows you, knows your heart? And even if they did, is there anything they would discover in you that you could take credit for? Isn't everything you have and everything you are sheer gifts from God? So what's the point of all this comparing and competing?8 You already have all you need. You already have more access to God than you can handle. Without bringing either Apollos or me into it, you're sitting on top of the world-at least God's world-and we're right there, sitting alongside you!

9 It seems to me that God has put us who bear his Message on stage in a theater in which no one wants to buy a ticket. We're something everyone stands around and stares at, like an accident in the street.10 We're the Messiah's misfits. You might be sure of yourselves, but we live in the midst of frailties and uncertainties. You might be well-thought-of by others, but we're mostly kicked around.11 Much of the time we don't have enough to eat, we wear patched and threadbare clothes, we get doors slammed in our faces,12 and we pick up odd jobs anywhere we can to eke out a living. When they call us names, we say, "God bless you."13 When they spread rumors about us, we put in a good word for them. We're treated like garbage, potato peelings from the culture's kitchen. And it's not getting any better.

14 I'm not writing all this as a neighborhood scold just to make you feel rotten. I'm writing as a father to you, my children. I love you and want you to grow up well, not spoiled.15 There are a lot of people around who can't wait to tell you what you've done wrong, but there aren't many fathers willing to take the time and effort to help you grow up. It was as Jesus helped me proclaim God's Message to you that I became your father.16 I'm not, you know, asking you to do anything I'm not already doing myself.

17 This is why I sent Timothy to you earlier. He is also my dear son, and true to the Master. He will refresh your memory on the instructions I regularly give all the churches on the way of Christ.

18 I know there are some among you who are so full of themselves they never listen to anyone, let alone me. They don't think I'll ever show up in person.19 But I'll be there sooner than you think, God willing, and then we'll see if they're full of anything but hot air.20 God's Way is not a matter of mere talk; it's an empowered life.

21 So how should I prepare to come to you? As a severe disciplinarian who makes you toe the mark? Or as a good friend and counselor who wants to share heart-to-heart with you? You decide.

1 Corinthians 5

The Mystery of Sex

1 I also received a report of scandalous sex within your church family, a kind that wouldn't be tolerated even outside the church: One of your men is sleeping with his stepmother.2 And you're so above it all that it doesn't even faze you! Shouldn't this break your hearts? Shouldn't it bring you to your knees in tears? Shouldn't this person and his conduct be confronted and dealt with?

3 I'll tell you what I would do. Even though I'm not there in person, consider me right there with you, because I can fully see what's going on. I'm telling you that this is wrong. You must not simply look the other way and hope it goes away on its own. Bring it out in the open and deal with it in the authority of Jesus our Master.4 Assemble the community-I'll be present in spirit with you and our Master Jesus will be present in power.5 Hold this man's conduct up to public scrutiny. Let him defend it if he can! But if he can't, then out with him! It will be totally devastating to him, of course, and embarrassing to you. But better devastation and embarrassment than damnation. You want him on his feet and forgiven before the Master on the Day of Judgment.

6 Your flip and callous arrogance in these things bothers me. You pass it off as a small thing, but it's anything but that. Yeast, too, is a "small thing," but it works its way through a whole batch of bread dough pretty fast.7 So get rid of this "yeast." Our true identity is flat and plain, not puffed up with the wrong kind of ingredient. The Messiah, our Passover Lamb, has already been sacrificed for the Passover meal, and we are the Unraised Bread part of the Feast.8 So let's live out our part in the Feast, not as raised bread swollen with the yeast of evil, but as flat bread-simple, genuine, unpretentious.

9 I wrote you in my earlier letter that you shouldn't make yourselves at home among the sexually promiscuous.10 I didn't mean that you should have nothing at all to do with outsiders of that sort. Or with crooks, whether blue- or white-collar. Or with spiritual phonies, for that matter. You'd have to leave the world entirely to do that!11 But I am saying that you shouldn't act as if everything is just fine when one of your Christian companions is promiscuous or crooked, is flip with God or rude to friends, gets drunk or becomes greedy and predatory. You can't just go along with this, treating it as acceptable behavior.12 I'm not responsible for what the outsiders do, but don't we have some responsibility for those within our community of believers?13 God decides on the outsiders, but we need to decide when our brothers and sisters are out of line and, if necessary, clean house.