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The Ministry of the Apostles

Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries. ²Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. ³But 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. ⁴I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. ⁵Therefore 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.

⁶ I have applied all this to Apollos and myself for your benefit, brothers and sisters, 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. ⁷For who sees anything different in you? 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?

⁸ 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! ⁹For 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. ¹⁰We 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. ¹¹To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless, ¹²and we grow weary from the work of our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; ¹³when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day.

Fatherly Admonition

¹⁴ I am not writing this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. ¹⁵For 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. ¹⁶I appeal to you, then, be imitators of me. ¹⁷For this reason I sent 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. ¹⁸But some of you, thinking that I am not coming to you, have become arrogant. ¹⁹But 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. ²⁰For the kingdom of God depends not on talk but on power. ²¹What would you prefer? Am I to come to you with a stick, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

18. As though I would not come to you This is the custom of the false apostles — to take advantage of the absence of the good, that they may triumph and vaunt without any hindrance. Paul, accordingly, with the view of reproving their ill-regulated conscience, and repressing their insolence, tells them, that they cannot endure his presence. It happens sometimes, it is true, that wicked men, on finding opportunity of insulting, rise up openly with an iron front against the servants of Christ, but never do they come forward ingenuously to an equal combat, ²⁶³²⁶³ “Si est-ce que jamais ils ne vienent a combatre franchement, et s’ ils ne voyent leur auantage: mats plustot en vsant de ruses et circuits obliques, ils monstrent leur deffiance, et comment ils sont mal asseurez;” — “So it is, that they never come forward frankly to a combat, and unless they have a view to their own advantage; but on the contrary, by making use of tricks and indirect windings, they show their want of confidence, and how distrustful they are.” but on the contrary, by sinister artifices they discover their want of confidence.

²⁶³ “Si est-ce que jamais ils ne vienent a combatre franchement, et s’ ils ne voyent leur auantage: mats plustot en vsant de ruses et circuits obliques, ils monstrent leur deffiance, et comment ils sont mal asseurez;” — “So it is, that they never come forward frankly to a combat, and unless they have a view to their own advantage; but on the contrary, by making use of tricks and indirect windings, they show their want of confidence, and how distrustful they are.”