4: 3.

trary, I do not even judge myself. For I know nothing against myself—although that proves nothing, but my judge is the Lord. So, then, pass no judgments before the proper time, till the Lord comes, and then he will throw light on hidden secrets, and will make plain the motives of men's hearts. Yes, praise will then come to each one of us from God.

Now, in saying these things, brothers, I have, for your sakes, applied them to myself and Apollos, so that you may learn the rule :

"Not beyond what is written."

And so let none of you speak boastfully of the one to the disparagement of the other.

For who makes And what have you

But if you received

you to differ from another? which you did not receive? it, why are you boasting as if you did not receive it? Have you already become satisfied? Have you already become rich? Have you become kings without us? Yes, I wish you really were kings, so that we also might be kings with you. And yet, it seems to me, God has brought out us Apostles last of all, as men doomed to death. For we have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, both to angels and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are men of sound sense. We are weak, but you are strong. You are honored, but we are despised. To this very

1 COR. 4: 11.

DEAR CHILDREN.

47

hour we are both hungry, and thirsty, and poorly clad. We are beaten. We have no settled home. We labor incessantly, working with our own hands. When we are abused, we bless. When we are persecuted, we endure. When we are slandered, we gently appeal to our traducers. We have been treated as the scum of the earth, as the vilest of the vile, to this very moment.

It is not with a desire to put you to shame I am writing these things. On the contrary, as my dear children, I am giving you warning. For even if you should have ten thousand tutors in Christ, yet you have not many fathers. For, by means of the Good News, I myself became your father in Christ Jesus. So I beg you to become imitators of me. For this reason I have sent Timothy to you. He is my dear and faithful child in the Lord, and he will remind you of my ways in Christ Jesus, just as I teach everywhere in every Church.

Now some have assumed a lofty air, as though I am not going to visit you. But I shall visit you very soon, if the Lord wills, and then I shall get to know, not the words of those who have assumed such a lofty air, but their power. For the Kingdom of God does not consist of words, but of power.

What do you desire? Shall I visit you with a rod, or in a spirit of love and gentleness?

5: 1.

And yet you

have not been

this thing might Then I, for my

It is actually reported that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not even found among the heathen, that one of you is living with his own stepmother as his wife. have assumed a lofty air, and grieved, so that the man who did be taken away from among you? part, absent in body, but present in spirit, and in the name of Jesus, our Lord, have already decided, as though I were present, about the man who has done this thing in such a way. So when you have met together, and my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ is with you, hand such a man over to Satan for the destruction of his carnal nature, so that his spirit may be safe on the day when the Lord finally comes. Your boasting is not honorable. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole mass? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a fresh mass, just as you are by profession unleavened.

For our Pascal Lamb, has, indeed, been slain,
And it is Christ.

So, then, let us keep our feast,

Not with the old leaven,

Nor with the leaven of vice and wickedness, But with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

1 COR. PUT AWAY THE WICKED THING. 5: 9.

49

I wrote to you, in my former letter, not to associate with immoral persons. I did not at all refer to men of the world who are immoral, or who are covetous, or grasping, or are idolaters. For then you would have to go out of the world altogether. But what I meant was that you are not to associate with any one who bears the name of a brother, if he is immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or abusive, or a drunkard, or grasping, -with such a person, no, not even to eat with him. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not for you to judge those who are within? But outsiders, God judges.

Put away the wicked thing from among you.

Does any of you who has a dispute with another dare to carry the case before heathen judges and not before those devoted to the cause of Christ? Or, do you not know that those devoted to Christ are to be the judges of the world? And, if the world is to be judged by you, are you not fit to render the most trivial judgments? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, things relating to this life? So, then, if you have cases relating to this life, why do you set those who have no standing with the Church to judge them? It is to your shame I have to say this. So there is not a wise man among you who

6: 5.

is able to decide between his brothers ? On the contrary, brother must go to law with brother and that, too, before unbelievers? So you are already decidedly at fault because you have disputes among yourselves at all. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be cheated? But, instead of this, you yourselves are doing wrong and cheating, and that, your brothers.

Do you not know that wrong-doers

Will have no share in God's Kingdom?

Do not deceive yourselves.

No immoral person, nor idolater, nor adulterer,

Nor catamite, nor sodomite,

Nor thief, nor covetous person,

Nor drunkard, nor abusive person,

Nor grasper,

Will have any share in the Kingdom of God.

And such kinds of people

Some of you used to be.

But you washed yourselves clean.

But you dedicated yourselves to Christ;

But you were set right;

In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord,

And in the Spirit of our God.

Everything is lawful for me.