menu_book Chapter 2

chapters seven through eleven of paul's first letter to the corinthians from the new testament in modern speech translated by richard francis weymouth this librivox recording is in the public domain recording by mark penfold chapter seven i now deal with the subjects mentioned in your letter it is well for a man to abstain altogether from marriage but because there is so much fornication every man should have a wife of his own and every woman should have a husband let a man pay his wife her due and let a woman also pay her husband his a married woman is not mistress of her own person her husband has certain rights in the same way a married man is not master of his own person his wife has certain rights do not refuse one another unless perhaps it is just for a time and by mutual consent so that you may devote yourselves to prayer and may then associate again lest the adversary begin to tempt you because of your deficiency in self-control thus much in the way of concession not of command yet i would that everybody lived as i do but each of us has his own special gift from god one in one direction and one in another but i tell the unmarried and women who are widows that it is well for them to remain as i am if however they cannot maintain self-control by all means let them marry for marriage is better than the fever of passion but to those already married my instructions are yet not mine but the lord's that a wife is not to leave her husband or if she has already left him let her either remain as she is or be reconciled to him and that a husband is not to send away his wife to the rest it is i who speak not the lord if a brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him let him not send her away and a woman who has an unbelieving husband if he consents to live with her let her not separate from him for in such cases the unbelieving husband has become and is wholly through union with a christian woman and the unbelieving wife

and the unbelieving wife is wholly through union with a christian brother otherwise your children would be unholy but in reality they have a place among god's people if however the unbeliever is determined to leave let him or her do so under such circumstances the christian man or woman is no slave god has called us to live lives of peace for what assurance have you o woman as to whether you will save your husband or what assurance have you o woman as to whether you will save your husband only whatever be the condition in life which the lord has assigned to each individual and whatever the condition in which he was living when god called him in that let him continue this is what i command in all the churches was anyone already circumcised when called let him not have recourse to the surgeons was anyone uncircumcised when called let him remain uncircumcised nothing and uncircumcision is nothing obedience to god's commandments is everything whatever be the condition in life in which a man was when he was called in that let him continue were you a slave when god called you let not that way on your mind and yet if you can get your freedom take advantage of the opportunity for a christian if he was a slave when called is the lord's freedman the slave the slave the slave of christ you have all been redeemed at infinite cost do not become slaves to men where each one stood when he was called there brethren let him still stand close to god concerning unmarried women i have no command to give you from the lord but i offer you my opinion which is that of a man who through the lord's mercy is deserving of your confidence i think then that taking into consideration the distress which is now upon us it is well for a man to remain as he is are you bound to a wife do not seek to get free are you free from the marriage bond do not seek for a wife yet if you marry you have not sinned and if a maiden marries she has not sinned such people however will have outward trouble but i am for sparing you yet of this i warn you brethren the time has been shortened so that henceforth

those who have wives should be as though they had none those who weep as though they did not weep those who rejoice as though they did not rejoice those who buy as though they did not possess and those who use the world as not using it to the full for the world as it now exists is passing away and i would have you free from worldly anxiety an unmarried man concerns himself with the lord's business how he shall please the lord but a married man concerns himself with the business of the world how he shall please his wife there is a difference too between a married and an unmarried woman she who is unmarried concerns herself with the lord's business that she may be holy both in body and spirit but the married woman concerns herself with the business of the world how she shall please her husband thus much i say in your own interest not to lay a trap for you but to help towards what is becoming and enable you to wait on the lord without distraction if however a father thinks he is acting unbecomingly towards his still unmarried daughter if she be past the bloom of her youth and so the matter is urgent let him do what she desires he commits no sin she and her suitor should be allowed to marry

but if a father stands firm in his resolve being free from all external constraint and having a legal right to act as he pleases and in his own mind has come to the decision to keep his daughter unmarried he will do well so that he who gives his daughter in marriage does well and yet he who does not give her in marriage will do better a woman is bound to her husband during the whole period that he lives but if her husband dies she is at liberty to marry whom she will provided that he is a christian but in my judgment her state is a more enviable one if she remains as she is and i also think that i have the spirit of god chapter eight now as to things which have been sacrificed to idols this is a subject which we already understand because we all have knowledge of it knowledge however tends to make people conceited

it is love that builds us up if anyone imagines that he already possesses any true knowledge he has as yet attained to no knowledge of the kind to which he ought to have attained but if anyone loves god that man is known by god as to eating things which have been sacrificed to idols we are fully aware that an idol is nothing in the world and that there is no god but one for if so-called gods do exist either in heaven or on earth and in fact there are many such gods and many such lords yet we have but one god the father who is the source of all things and for whose service we exist and but one lord jesus christ through whom we and all things exist but all believers do not recognize these facts some from force of habit in relation to the idol even now eat idol sacrifices as such and their consciences being but weak are polluted it is true that a particular kind of food will not bring us into god's presence we are neither inferior to others if we abstain from it nor superior to them if we eat it but take care lest this liberty of yours should prove a hindrance to the progress of weak believers and the progress of the believers for if anyone were to see you who know the real truth of this matter reclining at table in an idol's temple would not his conscience supposing him to be a weak believer be emboldened to eat the food which has been sacrificed to the idol why your knowledge becomes the ruin of the weak believer your brother for whom christ died moreover when you thus sin against the brethren and wound their weak consciences you are in reality sinning sinning sinning against christ therefore if what i eat causes my brother to fall never again to the end of my days will i touch any kind of animal food for fear i should cause my brother to fall

chapter 9 am i not free am i not an apostle can it be denied that i have seen jesus our lord are not you yourselves my work in the lord if to other men i am not an apostle yet at any rate i am one to you for your very existence as a christian church is the seal of my apostleship that is how i vindicate myself to those who criticize me have we not a right to claim food and drink have we not a right to take with us on our journeys a christian sister as our wife as the rest of the apostles do and the lord's brothers and peter or again is it only barnabas and myself who are not at liberty to give up working with our hands what soldier ever serves at his own cost who plants a vineyard and yet does not eat any of the grapes or who tends a herd of cattle and yet does not taste their milk am i making use of merely worldly illustrations does not the law speak in the same tone for in the law of moses it is written

thou shalt not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain is god simply thinking about the oxen or is it really in our interest that he speaks of course it was written in our interest because it is his will that when a plowman plows and a thresher threshes it should be in the hope of sharing that which comes as the result if it is we who sowed the spiritual grain in you is it a great thing that we should reap a temporal harvest from you if other teachers possess that right over you do not we possess it much more yet we have not availed ourselves of the right but we patiently endure all things rather than hinder in the least degree the progress of the good news of the christ

do you not know that those who perform the sacred rites have their food from the sacred place and that those who serve at the altar all alike share with the altar in the same way the lord also directed those who proclaim the good news to maintain themselves by the good news but i for my part have not used and do not use my full rights in any of these things nor do i now write with that object so far as i myself am concerned for i would rather die than have anybody make this boast of mine an empty one if i go on preaching the

good news that is nothing for me to boast of for the necessity is imposed upon me and alas for me if i fail to preach it and if i preach willingly i receive my wages but if against my will a stewardship has nevertheless been entrusted to me what are my wages then the very fact that the good news which i preach will cost my hearers nothing so that i cannot be charged with abuse of my privileges as a christian preacher though free from all human control i have made myself the slave of all in the hope of winning as

many converts as possible to the jews i have become like a jew in order to win jews to men under the law as if i were under the law although i am not in order to win those who are under the law to men without law as if i were without law although i am not without law in relation to god but am abiding in christ's law in order to win those who are without law to the weak i have become weak so as to gain the weak to all men i have become all things in the hope that in every one of these ways i may save some

and i do everything for the sake of the good news that i may share with my hearers in its benefits do you not know that in the foot race the runners all run but that only one gets the prize you must run like him in order to win with certainty but every competitor in an athletic contest practices abstentiousness in all directions they indeed do this for the sake of securing a perishable wreath but we for the sake of securing one that will not perish that is how i run not being in any doubt as to

my goal i am a boxer who does not inflict blows on the air but i hit hard and straight at my own body and lead it off into slavery lest possibly after i have been a herald to others i should myself be rejected chapter 10 for i would have you remember brethren how our forefathers were all of them sheltered by the cloud and all got safely through the red sea all were baptized in the cloud and in the sea to be followers of moses all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink

for they long drank the water that flowed from the spiritual rock that went with them and that rock was the christ but with most of them god was not well pleased for they were laid low in the desert and in this way they became a warning to us to teach us not to be eager as they were eager in pursuit of what is evil and you must not be worshippers of idols as some of them were for it is written the people sat down to eat and drink and stood up to dance nor may we be fornicators like some of them who

committed fornication and on a single day twenty three thousand of them fell dead and do not let us test the lord too far as some of them tested him and were destroyed by the serpents and do not be discontented as some of them were and they were destroyed by the destroyer all this kept happening to them with a figurative meaning but it was put on record by way of admonition to us upon whom the ends of the ages have come so then let him who thinks he is standing securely beware of falling

no temptation has you in its power but such as is common to human nature and god is faithful and will not allow you to be tempted beyond your strength but when the temptation comes he will also provide the way of escape so that you may be able to bear it therefore my dear friends avoid all connection with the worship of idols i speak as to men of sense judge for yourselves of what i say the cup of blessing which we bless does it not mean a joint participation in the blood of christ the loaf of bread

which we break does it not mean a joint participation in the body of christ since there is one loaf we who are many are one body we all of us share in that one loaf look at the israelites the nation and their ritual are not those who eat the sacrifices joint partakers in the altar do i mean that a thing sacrificed to an idol is what it claims to be or that an idol is a real thing no but that which the gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons not to god and i would not have you have fellowship with

one another through the demons you cannot drink the lord's cup and the cup of demons you cannot be joint partakers both in the table of the lord and in the table of demons or are we actually arousing the lord to jealousy are we stronger than he is everything is allowable but not everything is profitable everything is allowable but everything does not build others up let no one be forever seeking his own good but let each seek that of his fellow man anything that is for sale in the meat market eat

and ask no questions for conscience sake for the earth is the lord's and all that it contains if an unbeliever gives you an invitation and you are disposed to accept it eat whatever is put before you and ask no questions for conscience sake but if anyone tells you this food has been offered in sacrifice abstain from eating it out of respect for him who warned you and as before for conscience sake but now i mean his conscience not your own why on what ground you may object is the question of my liberty of action to be

decided by a conscience not my own if so far as i am concerned i partake with a grateful heart why am i to be found fault with in regard to a thing for which i give thanks whether then you are eating or drinking or whatever you are doing let everything be done to the glory of god do not be causes of stumbling either to jews or to gentiles nor to the church of god that is the way that i also seek in everything the approval of all men not aiming at my own profit but at that of the many in the hope that they may be saved

chapter 11 be imitators of me insofar as i in turn am an imitator of christ now i commend you for remembering me in everything and because you hold fast truths and practices precisely as i have taught them to you i would have you know however that of every man christ is the head that of a woman her husband is the head and that god is christ's head a man who wears a veil when praying or prophesying dishonors his head but a woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head

for it is exactly the same as if she had her hair cut short if a woman will not wear a veil let her also cut off her hair but since it is a dishonor to a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved let her wear a veil for a man ought not to have a veil on his head since he is the image and glory of god while woman is the glory of man man does not take his origin from woman but woman takes hers from man for man was not created for woman's sake but woman for man's that is why a woman ought to have on

her head a symbol of subjection because of the angels yet in the lord woman is not independent of man nor man independent of woman for just as woman originates from man so also man comes into existence through woman but everything springs originally from god judge of this for your own selves is it seemly for a woman to pray to god when she is unveiled does not nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair it is a dishonor to him but that if a woman has long hair it is her glory

because her hair was given her for a covering but if anyone is inclined to be contentious on the point we have no such custom nor have the churches of god but while giving you these instructions there is one thing i cannot praise your meeting together with bad rather than good results for in the first place when you meet as a church there are divisions among you this is what i am told and i believe that there is some truth in it for there must of necessity be differences of opinion among you in order that it

may be plainly seen who are the men of sterling worth among you when however you meet in one place there is no eating the supper of the lord for it is his own supper of which each of you is in a hurry to partake and one eats like a hungry man while another has already drunk to excess why have you no homes in which to eat and drink or do you wish to show your contempt for the church of god and make those who have no homes feel ashamed what shall i say to you shall i praise you in this matter i certainly

do not praise you for it was from the lord that i received the facts which in turn i handed on to you how that the lord jesus on the night he was to be betrayed took some bread and after giving thanks he broke it and said this is my body which is about to be broken for you do this in memory of me in the same way when the meal was over he also took the cup this cup he said is the new covenant of which my blood is the pledge do this every time that you drink it in memory of me for every time that you eat this

bread and drink from the cup you are proclaiming the lord's death until he returns whoever therefore in an unworthy manner eats the bread or drinks from the cup of the lord sins against the body and blood of the lord but let a man examine himself and having done that then let him eat the bread and drink from the cup for anyone who eats and drinks eats and drinks judgment to himself if he fails to estimate the body aright that is why many among you are sickly and out of health and why not a few

die if however we estimated ourselves aright we should not be judged but when we are judged by the lord chastisement follows to save us from being condemned along with the world therefore brethren when you come together for this meal wait for one another if anyone is hungry let him eat at home so that your coming together may not lead to judgment the other matters i will deal with whenever i come