This is how one should regard us: as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries.
Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy.
But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself.
I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.
Therefore 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 will receive praise from God.
Now I have applied these things to myself and Apollos 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.
For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you did not?
You are already full! You are already rich! You have become kings without us—and I wish that you had become kings so that we also might be kings with you!
For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men.
We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute.
To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly clothed and buffeted and homeless,
and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure;
when slandered, we speak kindly.
We have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world, until now.
I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children.
For 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.
Therefore I urge you, be imitators of me.
For this reason I sent to you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church.
Some are arrogant, as though I were not coming to you.
But 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.
For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power.
What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love and a spirit of gentleness?
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