Qualified prohibitions. (Do you eat Africans?)
BQ: The average North American consumes more than 400 Africans. A woman, without her man, is nothing. A woman: without her, man is nothing. "Don't!!! STOP!!!" vs "Don't stop." How things are written and said can vastly change meaning and interpretation.

Q: 1 Cor 1:17 says, "For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel." What is analytically important in this verse that we see in several other verses in the Bible, yet which causes people to stumble in their understanding? 

A:  There are several "NOT...BUT" passages in the Bible that are relative, not absolute, prohibitions, and they're expressed through this correlative conjunction. Some look at this and fail to understand the impact of the construction and come to the conclusion that Paul was absolutely prohibited from immersing people, as that would be rebelling against Christ. Yet we see in 1 Cor 1:14 that he baptized Crispus and Gaius, and in 16 that he baptized Stephanus' household.

There are other verses which carry this same, important construction: "Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life." (Jn 6:27) We cannot interpret this as an absolute prohibition, just as we can't say that Paul was prohibited from baptizing. Otherwise we'd all starve, and 2 Thess says, " If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat."

I'll leave these last two for you to think on, given what we've looked at above:
"Let NOT your adornment be external -- braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses, BUT let it be the hidden person of the heart. (1 Pet 3:3)  "For they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the Law also says." (1 Cor 14:34)
(PN130)