The Living Bible (361 page)

1 Corinthians
2

Dear brothers, even when I first came to you I didn’t use lofty words and brilliant ideas to tell you God’s message.
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 For I decided that I would speak only of Jesus Christ and his death on the cross.
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 I came to you in weakness—timid and trembling.
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 And my preaching was very plain, not with a lot of oratory and human wisdom, but the Holy Spirit’s power was in my words, proving to those who heard them that the message was from God.
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 I did this because I wanted your faith to stand firmly upon God, not on man’s great ideas.

    
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 Yet when I am among mature Christians I do speak with words of great wisdom, but not the kind that comes from here on earth, and not the kind that appeals to the great men of this world, who are doomed to fall.
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 Our words are wise because they are from God, telling of God’s wise plan to bring us into the glories of heaven. This plan was hidden in former times, though it was made for our benefit before the world began.
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 But the great men of the world have not understood it; if they had, they never would have crucified the Lord of Glory.

    
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 That is what is meant by the Scriptures which say that no mere man has ever seen, heard, or even imagined what wonderful things God has ready for those who love the Lord.
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 But we know about these things because God has sent his Spirit to tell us, and his Spirit searches out and shows us all of God’s deepest secrets.
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 No one can really know what anyone else is thinking or what he is really like except that person himself. And no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit.
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 And God has actually given us his Spirit (not the world’s spirit) to tell us about the wonderful free gifts of grace and blessing that God has given us.
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 In telling you about these gifts we have even used the very words given to us by the Holy Spirit, not words that we as men might choose. So we use the Holy Spirit’s words to explain the Holy Spirit’s facts.
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 But the man who isn’t a Christian can’t understand and can’t accept these thoughts from God, which the Holy Spirit teaches us. They sound foolish to him because only those who have the Holy Spirit within them can understand what the Holy Spirit means. Others just can’t take it in.
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 But the spiritual man has insight into everything, and that bothers and baffles the man of the world, who can’t understand him at all.
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 How could he? For certainly he has never been one to know the Lord’s thoughts, or to discuss them with him, or to move the hands of God by prayer.
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But, strange as it seems, we Christians actually do have within us a portion of the very thoughts and mind of Christ.

1 Corinthians
3

Dear brothers, I have been talking to you as though you were still just babies in the Christian life who are not following the Lord but your own desires; I cannot talk to you as I would to healthy Christians who are filled with the Spirit.
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 I have had to feed you with milk and not with solid food because you couldn’t digest anything stronger. And even now you still have to be fed on milk.
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 For you are still only baby Christians, controlled by your own desires, not God’s. When you are jealous of one another and divide up into quarreling groups, doesn’t that prove you are still babies, wanting your own way? In fact, you are acting like people who don’t belong to the Lord at all.
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 There you are, quarreling about whether I am greater than Apollos, and dividing the church. Doesn’t this show how little you have grown in the Lord?
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 Who am I, and who is Apollos, that we should be the cause of a quarrel? Why, we’re just God’s servants, each of us with certain special abilities, and with our help you believed.
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 My work was to plant the seed in your hearts, and Apollos’ work was to water it, but it was God, not we, who made the garden grow in your hearts.
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 The person who does the planting or watering isn’t very important, but God is important because he is the one who makes things grow.
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 Apollos and I are working as a team, with the same aim, though each of us will be rewarded for his own hard work.
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 We are only God’s coworkers. You are
God’s
garden, not ours; you are
God’s
building, not ours.

    
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 God, in his kindness, has taught me how to be an expert builder. I have laid the foundation and Apollos has built on it. But he who builds on the foundation must be very careful.
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 And no one can ever lay any other real foundation than that one we already have—Jesus Christ.
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 But there are various kinds of materials that can be used to build on that foundation. Some use gold and silver and jewels; and some build with sticks and hay or even straw!
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 There is going to come a time of testing at Christ’s Judgment Day to see what kind of material each builder has used. Everyone’s work will be put through the fire so that all can see whether or not it keeps its value, and what was really accomplished.
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 Then every workman who has built on the foundation with the right materials, and whose work still stands, will get his pay.
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 But if the house he has built burns up, he will have a great loss. He himself will be saved, but like a man escaping through a wall of flames.

    
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 Don’t you realize that all of you together are the house of God, and that the Spirit of God lives among you in his house?
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 If anyone defiles and spoils God’s home, God will destroy him. For God’s home is holy and clean, and you are that home.

    
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 Stop fooling yourselves. If you count yourself above average in intelligence, as judged by this world’s standards, you had better put this all aside and be a fool rather than let it hold you back from the true wisdom from above.
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 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As it says in the book of Job, God uses man’s own brilliance to trap him; he stumbles over his own “wisdom” and falls.
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 And again, in the book of Psalms, we are told that the Lord knows full well how the human mind reasons and how foolish and futile it is.

    
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 So don’t be proud of following the wise men of this world.
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For God has already given you everything you need.
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 He has given you Paul and Apollos and Peter as your helpers. He has given you the whole world to use, and life and even death are your servants. He has given you all of the present and all of the future. All are yours,
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 and you belong to Christ, and Christ is God’s.

1 Corinthians
4

So Apollos and I should be looked upon as Christ’s servants who distribute God’s blessings by explaining God’s secrets.
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 Now the most important thing about a servant is that he does just what his master tells him to.
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 What about me? Have I been a good servant? Well, I don’t worry over what you think about this or what anyone else thinks. I don’t even trust my own judgment on this point.
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 My conscience is clear, but even that isn’t final proof. It is the Lord himself who must examine me and decide.

    
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 So be careful not to jump to conclusions before the Lord returns as to whether someone is a good servant or not. When the Lord comes, he will turn on the light so that everyone can see exactly what each one of us is really like, deep down in our hearts. Then everyone will know why we have been doing the Lord’s work. At that time God will give to each one whatever praise is coming to him.

    
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 I have used Apollos and myself as examples to illustrate what I have been saying: that you must not have favorites. You must not be proud of one of God’s teachers more than another.
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 What are you so puffed up about? What do you have that God hasn’t given you? And if all you have is from God, why act as though you are so great, and as though you have accomplished something on your own?

    
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 You seem to think you already have all the spiritual food you need. You are full and spiritually contented, rich kings on your thrones, leaving us far behind! I wish you really were already on your thrones, for when that time comes you can be sure that we will be there, too, reigning with you.
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 Sometimes I think God has put us apostles at the very end of the line, like prisoners soon to be killed, put on display at the end of a victor’s parade, to be stared at by men and angels alike.

    
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 Religion has made us foolish, you say, but of course you are all such wise and sensible Christians! We are weak, but not you! You are well thought of, while we are laughed at.
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 To this very hour we have gone hungry and thirsty, without even enough clothes to keep us warm. We have been kicked around without homes of our own.
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 We have worked wearily with our hands to earn our living. We have blessed those who cursed us. We have been patient with those who injured us.
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 We have replied quietly when evil things have been said about us. Yet right up to the present moment we are like dirt underfoot, like garbage.

    
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 I am not writing about these things to make you ashamed, but to warn and counsel you as beloved children.
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 For although you may have ten thousand others to teach you about Christ, remember that you have only me as your father. For I was the one who brought you to Christ when I preached the Gospel to you.
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 So I beg you to follow my example and do as I do.

    
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 That is the very reason why I am sending Timothy—to help you do this. For he is one of those I won to Christ, a beloved and trustworthy child in the Lord. He will remind you of what I teach in all the churches wherever I go.

    
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 I know that some of you will have become proud, thinking that I am afraid to come to deal with you.
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 But I will come, and soon, if the Lord will let me, and then I’ll find out whether these proud men are just big talkers or whether they really have God’s power.
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 The Kingdom of God is not just talking; it is living by God’s power.
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 Which do you choose? Shall I come with punishment and scolding, or shall I come with quiet love and gentleness?