Daily Text and Bible Reading: Tuesday, December 4 [Press play below]

1.1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will, and Sosthenes our brother,
1.2 to the congregation of God that is in Corinth, to you who have been sanctified in union with Christ Jesus, called to be holy ones, together with all those everywhere who are calling on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:
1.3 May you have undeserved kindness and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
1.4 I always thank my God for you in view of the undeserved kindness of God given to you in Christ Jesus;
1.5 because in everything you have been enriched in him, in full ability to speak and in full knowledge,
1.6 just as the witness about the Christ has been made firm among you,
1.7 so that you do not lack in any gift at all, while you are eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1.8 He will also make you firm to the end so that you may be open to no accusation in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1.9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
1.10 Now I urge you, brothers, through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you should all speak in agreement and that there should be no divisions among you, but that you may be completely united in the same mind and in the same line of thought.
1.11 For some from the house of Chloe have informed me regarding you, my brothers, that there are dissensions among you.
1.12 What I mean is this, that each one of you says: “I belong to Paul,” “But I to Apollos,” “But I to Cephas,” “But I to Christ.”
1.13 Is the Christ divided? Paul was not executed on the stake for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
1.14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius,
1.15 so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name.
1.16 Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas. As for the rest, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.
1.17 For Christ sent me, not to baptize, but to declare the good news; and not with wisdom of speech, so that the torture stake of the Christ should not be made useless.
1.18 For the speech about the torture stake is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is God’s power.
1.19 For it is written: “I will make the wisdom of the wise men perish, and the intelligence of the intellectuals I will reject.”
1.20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this system of things? Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish?
1.21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not get to know God through its wisdom, God was pleased through the foolishness of what is preached to save those believing.
1.22 For the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks look for wisdom;
1.23 but we preach Christ executed on the stake, to the Jews a cause for stumbling but to the nations foolishness.
1.24 However, to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
1.25 Because a foolish thing of God is wiser than men, and a weak thing of God is stronger than men.
1.26 For you see his calling of you, brothers, that there are not many wise in a fleshly way, not many powerful, not many of noble birth,
1.27 but God chose the foolish things of the world to put the wise men to shame; and God chose the weak things of the world to put the strong things to shame;
1.28 and God chose the insignificant things of the world and the things looked down on, the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are,
1.29 so that no one might boast in the sight of God.
1.30 But it is due to him that you are in union with Christ Jesus, who has become to us wisdom from God, also righteousness and sanctification and release by ransom,
1.31 so that it may be just as it is written: “The one who boasts, let him boast in Jehovah.”
2.1 So when I came to you, brothers, I did not come with extravagant speech or wisdom declaring the sacred secret of God to you.
2.2 For I decided not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ, and him executed on the stake.
2.3 And I came to you in weakness and in fear and with much trembling;
2.4 and my speech and what I preached were not with persuasive words of wisdom but with a demonstration of spirit and power,
2.5 so that your faith might be, not in men’s wisdom, but in God’s power.
2.6 Now we speak wisdom among those who are mature, but not the wisdom of this system of things nor that of the rulers of this system of things, who are to come to nothing.
2.7 But we speak God’s wisdom in a sacred secret, the hidden wisdom, which God foreordained before the systems of things for our glory.
2.8 It is this wisdom that none of the rulers of this system of things came to know, for if they had known it, they would not have executed the glorious Lord.
2.9 But just as it is written: “Eye has not seen and ear has not heard, nor have there been conceived in the heart of man the things that God has prepared for those who love him.”
2.10 For it is to us God has revealed them through his spirit, for the spirit searches into all things, even the deep things of God.
2.11 For who among men knows the things of a man except the man’s spirit within him? So, too, no one has come to know the things of God except the spirit of God.
2.12 Now we received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit that is from God, so that we might know the things that have been kindly given us by God.
2.13 These things we also speak, not with words taught by human wisdom, but with those taught by the spirit, as we explain spiritual matters with spiritual words.
2.14 But a physical man does not accept the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot get to know them, because they are examined spiritually.
2.15 However, the spiritual man examines all things, but he himself is not examined by any man.
2.16 For “who has come to know the mind of Jehovah, so that he may instruct him?” But we do have the mind of Christ.
3.1 So, brothers, I was not able to speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to fleshly men, as to infants in Christ.
3.2 I fed you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet strong enough. In fact, neither are you strong enough now,
3.3 for you are still fleshly. Since there are jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly and are you not walking as men do?
3.4 For when one says, “I belong to Paul,” but another says, “I to Apollos,” are you not acting like mere men?
3.5 What, then, is Apollos? Yes, what is Paul? Ministers through whom you became believers, just as the Lord granted each one.
3.6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God kept making it grow,
3.7 so that neither is the one who plants anything nor is the one who waters, but God who makes it grow.
3.8 Now the one who plants and the one who waters are one, but each person will receive his own reward according to his own work.
3.9 For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field under cultivation, God’s building.
3.10 According to the undeserved kindness of God that was given to me, I laid a foundation as a skilled master builder, but someone else is building on it. But let each one keep watching how he is building on it.
3.11 For no one can lay any other foundation than what is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
3.12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw,
3.13 each one’s work will be shown for what it is, for the day will show it up, because it will be revealed by means of fire, and the fire itself will prove what sort of work each one has built.
3.14 If anyone’s work that he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward;
3.15 if anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved; yet, if so, it will be as through fire.
3.16 Do you not know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that the spirit of God dwells in you?
3.17 If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him; for the temple of God is holy, and you are that temple.
3.18 Let no one deceive himself: If anyone among you thinks he is wise in this system of things, let him become a fool, so that he may become wise.
3.19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, for it is written: “He catches the wise in their own cunning.”
3.20 And again: “Jehovah knows that the reasonings of the wise men are futile.”
3.21 So let no one boast in men; for all things belong to you,
3.22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things now here or things to come, all things belong to you;
3.23 in turn you belong to Christ; Christ, in turn, belongs to God.
4.1 A man should regard us as attendants of Christ and stewards of God’s sacred secrets.
4.2 In this regard, what is expected of stewards is that they be found faithful.
4.3 Now to me it is of very little importance to be examined by you or by a human tribunal. In fact, I do not even examine myself.
4.4 For I am not conscious of anything against myself. But by this I am not proved righteous; the one who examines me is Jehovah.
4.5 Therefore, do not judge anything before the due time, until the Lord comes. He will bring the secret things of darkness to light and make known the intentions of the hearts, and then each one will receive his praise from God.
4.6 Now, brothers, these things I have applied to myself and Apollos for your good, that through us you may learn the rule: “Do not go beyond the things that are written,” so that you may not be puffed up with pride, favoring one against the other.
4.7 For who makes you different from another? Indeed, what do you have that you did not receive? If, in fact, you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not receive it?
4.8 Are you already satisfied? Are you already rich? Have you begun ruling as kings without us? I really wish that you had begun ruling as kings, so that we also might rule with you as kings.
4.9 For it seems to me that God has put us the apostles last on exhibition as men condemned to death, because we have become a theatrical spectacle to the world, and to angels and to men.
4.10 We are fools because of Christ, but you are discreet in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are held in honor, but we in dishonor.
4.11 Down to this very hour we continue to hunger and thirst and to be poorly clothed and to be beaten and to be homeless
4.12 and to toil, working with our own hands. When insulted, we bless; when persecuted, we patiently endure;
4.13 when slandered, we answer mildly; we have become as the refuse of the world, the offscouring of all things, until now.
4.14 I am writing these things, not to put you to shame, but to admonish you as my beloved children.
4.15 For though you may have 10,000 guardians in Christ, you certainly do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus, I have become your father through the good news.
4.16 I urge you, therefore, become imitators of me.
4.17 That is why I am sending Timothy to you, because he is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord. He will remind you of my methods in connection with Christ Jesus, just as I am teaching everywhere in every congregation.
4.18 Some are puffed up with pride, as though I were not coming to you.
4.19 But I will come to you shortly, if Jehovah wills, and I will get to know, not the speech of those who are puffed up with pride, but their power.
4.20 For the Kingdom of God is a matter not of speech but of power.
4.21 Which do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a rod or with love and mildness of spirit?
5.1 Actually sexual immorality is reported among you, and such immorality as is not even found among the nations—of a man living with his father’s wife.
5.2 And are you proud of it? Should you not rather mourn, so that the man who committed this deed should be taken away from your midst?
5.3 Although absent in body, I am present in spirit, and I have already judged the man who has done this, as if I were actually with you.
5.4 When you are gathered together in the name of our Lord Jesus, and knowing that I am with you in spirit along with the power of our Lord Jesus,
5.5 you must hand such a man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.
5.6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven ferments the whole batch of dough?
5.7 Clear away the old leaven so that you may be a new batch, inasmuch as you are free from ferment. For, indeed, Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed.
5.8 So, then, let us keep the festival, not with old leaven, nor with leaven of badness and wickedness, but with unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
5.9 In my letter I wrote you to stop keeping company with sexually immoral people,
5.10 not meaning entirely with the sexually immoral people of this world or the greedy people or extortioners or idolaters. Otherwise, you would actually have to get out of the world.
5.11 But now I am writing you to stop keeping company with anyone called a brother who is sexually immoral or a greedy person or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even eating with such a man.
5.12 For what do I have to do with judging those outside? Do you not judge those inside,
5.13 while God judges those outside? “Remove the wicked person from among yourselves.”
6.1 Does any one of you who has a dispute with another dare to go to court before unrighteous men, and not before the holy ones?
6.2 Or do you not know that the holy ones will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you not competent to try very trivial matters?
6.3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? Then why not matters of this life?
6.4 If, then, you do have matters of this life to be tried, is it the men looked down on in the congregation whom you assign as judges?
6.5 I am speaking to move you to shame. Is there not one wise man among you who is able to judge between his brothers?
6.6 Instead, brother goes to court against brother, and before unbelievers at that!
6.7 Really, it is already a defeat for you when you have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather let yourselves be wronged? Why do you not rather let yourselves be defrauded?
6.8 Instead, you wrong and defraud, and your brothers at that!
6.9 Or do you not know that unrighteous people will not inherit God’s Kingdom? Do not be misled. Those who are sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, men who submit to homosexual acts, men who practice homosexuality,
6.10 thieves, greedy people, drunkards, revilers, and extortioners will not inherit God’s Kingdom.
6.11 And yet that is what some of you were. But you have been washed clean; you have been sanctified; you have been declared righteous in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and with the spirit of our God.
6.12 All things are lawful for me, but not all things are advantageous. All things are lawful for me, but I will not let myself be controlled by anything.
6.13 Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will bring both of them to nothing. The body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.
6.14 But God raised up the Lord and will also raise us up out of death through his power.
6.15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I, then, take the members of the Christ away and join them to a prostitute? By no means!
6.16 Do you not know that anyone who is joined to a prostitute is one body with her? For “the two,” says he, “will be one flesh.”
6.17 But whoever is joined to the Lord is one with him in spirit.
6.18 Flee from sexual immorality! Every other sin that a man may commit is outside his body, but whoever practices sexual immorality is sinning against his own body.
6.19 Do you not know that your body is the temple of the holy spirit within you, which you have from God? Also, you do not belong to yourselves,
6.20 for you were bought with a price. By all means, glorify God in your body.