By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light.
It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.
Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.
Do
not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the
standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become
wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness ...“The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.” So then, no more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas
or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.
1 COR 4: 1-17
This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore
judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He
will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the
motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from
God.
Now,
brothers and sisters, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos
for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the
saying, “Do not go beyond what is written.” Then you will not be puffed
up in being a follower of one of us over against the other. For
who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did
not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you
did not?
Already
you have all you want! Already you have become rich! You have begun to
reign—and that without us! How I wish that you really had begun to reign
so that we also might reign with you! For
it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of
the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena. We have been
made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human
beings. We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world—right up to this moment.
Paul’s Appeal and Warning
I am writing this not to shame you but to warn you as my dear children. Even
if you had ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many
fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me. For
this reason I have sent to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is
faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ
Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.
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