1 Corinthians 6

1 Corinthians 6
1 Corinthians 7:33-8:4 in Papyrus 15, written in the 3rd century.
Book First Epistle to the Corinthians
Bible part New Testament
Order in the Bible part 7
Category Pauline epistles

1 Corinthians 6 is the sixth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It is authored by Paul the Apostle and Sosthenes in Ephesus.[1][2] In this chapter, Paul deals with lawsuits among believers and with sexual immorality.[3]

Text

Structure

The New King James Version organises this chapter as follows:

Lawsuits among believers

Paul criticises those who take up lawsuits with other believers before the civil authorities - those who have no standing in the church. There should be people within the church who are "wise enough to decide between one believer [or brother] and another": Paul asks whether there are any? It would be better to be wronged and to be defrauded than to take a matter to court before the "unrighteous" - for that is itself a greater fraud.[4]

Theologian Albert Barnes treats Paul's question as rhetorical:

Can it be that in the Christian church - the church collected in refined and enlightened Corinth - there is not a single member so wise, intelligent and prudent that his brethren may have confidence in him, and refer their causes to him? [5]

whereas William Robertson Nicoll, in the Expositor's Greek Testament, argues that

The litigation shows that there is no man in the Church wise enough to settle such matters privately; or he would surely have been called in.[6]

Martin Luther, Beza, Lachmann, Osiander, Hofmann and Meyer "make the passage sterner and more telling" as an assertion than the common way of viewing it as a question, which is adopted also by Tischendorf and Ewald.[7]

Verse 9

King James Version

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,[8]

Cross reference: 1 Timothy 1:10

Verse 12

New King James Version

All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.[9]
  • "helpful" (NKJV) "expedient" (KJV)

Gill comments that "everything is not lawful to be done when the doing of them destroys the peace, comfort, and edification of others; when it stumbles and grieves weak minds, and causes offence to them"; see (1 Corinthians 10:23), so not "expedient" to use this liberty, to grieve a weak brother or to make oneself a "slave to one's appetite".[10]

Verse 16

New King James Version

Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For “the two”, He says, “shall become one flesh.”[11]

Cross references: Genesis 2:24

Final verse (verse 20)

The majority of early manuscripts end this chapter with the words Greek: δοξάσατε δὴ τὸν Θεὸν ἐν τῷ σώματι ὑμῶν, doxasate de tov theon en tō sōmati humōn), "therefore glorify God in your body". The Textus Receptus adds Greek: καὶ ἐν τῷ πνεύματι ὑμῶν, ἅτινά ἐστι τοῦ Θεοῦ, kai en to pneumati humōn, hatina esti tou theou, which the New King James Version translates as "and in your spirit, which are (i.e. body and spirit) God’s".[12] The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges notes that "these words are not found in many of the best MSS. and versions, and they somewhat weaken the force of the argument, which is intended to assert the dignity of the body. They were perhaps inserted by some who, missing the point of the Apostle’s argument, thought that the worship of the spirit was unduly passed over."[13]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Halley, Henry H. Halley's Bible Handbook: an Abbreviated Bible Commentary, 23rd edition. Zondervan Publishing House. 1962.
  2. ↑ Holman Illustrated Bible Handbook. Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee. 2012.
  3. ↑ See section headings in New International Version: 1 Corinthians 6:1-20
  4. ↑ 1 Corinthians 6:1-8
  5. ↑ Barnes' Notes on 1 Corinthians 6, accessed 27 March 2017
  6. ↑ The Expositor's Greek Testament on 1 Corinthians 6, accessed 27 March 2017
  7. ↑ Meyer's NT Commentary on 1 Corinthians 6, accessed 27 March 2017
  8. ↑ 1 Corinthians 6:12 (KJV)
  9. ↑ 1 Corinthians 6:12
  10. ↑ John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible, - 1 Corinthians 6:12
  11. ↑ 1 Corinthians 6:16
  12. ↑ 1 Corinthians 6:20
  13. ↑ Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges on 1 Corinthians 6, accessed 26 March 2017
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