The Jewish Annotated New Testament (86 page)
Read The Jewish Annotated New Testament Online
Authors: Amy-Jill Levine
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And so, brothers and sisters,
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I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.
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I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready,
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for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations?
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For when one says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not merely human?
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What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each.
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I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.
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So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
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The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each.
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For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.
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According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it.
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For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.
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Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—
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the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done.
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If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward.
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If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire.
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Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
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If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
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Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise.
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For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written,
“He catches the wise in their craftiness,”
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and again,
“The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise,
that they are futile.”
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So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours,
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whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all belong to you,
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and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.
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Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries.
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Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy.
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But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself.
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I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.
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Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive commendation from God.
PAUL AND THE TRINITY
Once Christianity developed the doctrine of the Trinity, the triune nature of God, concerns arose over early Christian writings that seemed to understand God differently. First Corinthians 15.28 expresses Paul’s end-time theology most fully, yet it is obscure. Paul’s use of God (
theos
) more than 100 times in this epistle, compared with 64 occurrences of Christ, is noteworthy. He may be addressing some Corinthians’ failure to recognize the implications of the gospel for God’s power and sovereignty as revealed fully in the end of days (see 1.12,30), perhaps those who say, “I belong to Christ.” This passage illustrates Paul’s understanding that Christ (the messiah) is not God, even though Christ incarnates God’s wisdom and power (1.24), imparts the Holy Spirit (6.17), and is the conduit for all existence (8.6); ultimately, “Christ belongs to God” (3.23), who is both the source of all that exists in the universe as well as its purpose. This view is termed “subordinationism,” although many Christians would reject such characterization of Paul’s theology.
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I have applied all this to Apollos and myself for your benefit, brothers and sisters,
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so that you may learn through us the meaning of the saying, “Nothing beyond what is written,” so that none of you will be puffed up in favor of one against another.
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For who sees anything different in you?
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What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?
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Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Quite apart from us you have become kings! Indeed, I wish that you had become kings, so that we might be kings with you!
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For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, as though sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to mortals.
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We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute.
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To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless,
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and we grow weary from the work of our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure;
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when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day.
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I am not writing this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children.
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For though you might have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. Indeed, in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.
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I appeal to you, then, be imitators of me.
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For this reason I sent
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you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ Jesus, as I teach them everywhere in every church.
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But some of you, thinking that I am not coming to you, have become arrogant.
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But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power.
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For the kingdom of God depends not on talk but on power.
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What would you prefer? Am I to come to you with a stick, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?
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It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans; for a man is living with his father’s wife.
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And you are arrogant! Should you not rather have mourned, so that he who has done this would have been removed from among you?
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For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present I have already pronounced judgment
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in the name of the Lord Jesus on the man who has done such a thing.
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When you are assembled, and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus,
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you are to hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.
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Your boasting is not a good thing. Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough?
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Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, as you really are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed.
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Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
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I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral persons—
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not at all meaning the immoral of this world, or the greedy and robbers, or idolaters, since you would then need to go out of the world.
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But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister
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who is sexually immoral or greedy, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber. Do not even eat with such a one.
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For what have I to do with judging those outside? Is it not those who are inside that you are to judge?
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God will judge those outside. “Drive out the wicked person from among you.”
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When any of you has a grievance against another, do you dare to take it to court before the unrighteous, instead of taking it before the saints?
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Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases?
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Do you not know that we are to judge angels—to say nothing of ordinary matters?
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If you have ordinary cases, then, do you appoint as judges those who have no standing in the church?
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I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to decide between one believer
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and another,
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but a believer
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goes to court against a believer
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—and before unbelievers at that?
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In fact, to have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded?
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But you yourselves wrong and defraud—and believers
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at that.
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Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites,
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thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.
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And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
