1 Corinthians 6 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
~AD 53-55
Location
Written to the church in Corinth, a major Roman port city in Greece
Audience
The Christian church in Corinth, composed of both Jewish and Gentile converts in a cosmopolitan urban setting
Situation
Paul addresses two critical issues: believers taking legal disputes before pagan courts rather than resolving them within the church, and sexual immorality among church members. These problems reflected Corinth's culture as a commercial hub known for moral laxity.
Key Background
Corinth was infamous for sexual promiscuity, including temple prostitution associated with the cult of Aphrodite. As a Roman colony with diverse populations, legal courts were central to civic life, making Paul's call to avoid secular litigation countercultural. The Corinthian believers struggled to distinguish Christian freedom from cultural permissiveness, requiring Paul to clarify that their bodies were temples of the Holy Spirit with ethical implications.
When one of you has a dispute with another, how dare you take it before instead of letting settle it?
Don't you realize that God's people will the And if you're going to the can't you handle these trivial cases?
Don't you know that we will judge How much more should we be able to handle everyday matters!
So if you have disputes about everyday matters, why are you bringing them before people who have no standing in the
I'm saying this to you. Is there really no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between fellow believers?
Instead, one believer takes another to court — and in front of no less!
The fact that you have lawsuits at all against each other is already a for you. Why not just accept the wrong? Why not just let yourselves be cheated?
Instead, you yourselves are doing wrong and cheating — and you're doing it to your own and
Don't you realize that people who practice injustice will not inherit Don't fool yourselves: people who are who who their who their who have with other
who steal, who more, who get drunk, who down with their who — none of these will inherit God's kingdom.
And that's what some of you used to be. But you were you were you were with through the name of the Lord Jesus, The and through the of
"I'm to do — sure, but not everything is "I'm to do — but I won't let control me.
is for the and the for — and God will do away with both of them. But the body is not for — it's for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.
God the Lord from the dead, and by his power he will raise us too.
Don't you know that your bodies are of The himself? Should I take the of The and join them to a Absolutely not!
Don't you realize that when a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes body with her? As it says, "The two will become
But anyone who is joined to the Lord becomes with him.
from sexual corruption. Every other failure that a person commits is outside the but the person who is sexually corrupt their own
Don't you know that your body is a where the of lives — the you received from You don't belong to yourselves.
You were at a So with your body.