1People should think of us as servants of Christ and as managers of God’s secret truths.
2Now, what is expected from managers is that they prove to be faithful.
3But I care very little if you judge me, or if any human court judges me. In fact, I don't even judge myself.
4My conscience is clear, but that doesn't make me innocent. The Lord is the one who judges me.
5So don’t judge anything before the right time. Wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of people’s hearts. At that time, God will give each person the praise they deserve.
6Now, brothers and sisters, I have used myself and Apollos as examples for your benefit. My goal is for you to learn from us not to go beyond what is written. Then none of you will become arrogant and favor one person over another.
7Who made you different from anyone else? And what do you have that you didn’t receive as a gift? If you did receive it as a gift, why do you brag as if you didn’t?
8You already have everything you need! You have already become rich! You have begun to rule like kings without us! I wish you really were kings, so that we might also rule with you.
9It seems to me that God has put us, the apostles, on display last, like people sentenced to death. We have become a public spectacle to the whole world—to angels as well as to people.
10We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are honored, but we are dishonored.
11Even to this very hour we are hungry and thirsty, poorly dressed, brutally treated, and we have no stable home.
12We work hard with our own hands. When people insult us, we bless them. When we are persecuted, we endure it patiently.
13When people speak evil of us, we respond with kindness. We are treated as the scum of the earth, like the trash of the world, even to this day.
14I am not writing these things to shame you, but to warn you as my beloved children.
15Even if you had ten thousand guides in Christ, you don’t have many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, I became your father through the Good News.
16So I urge you to imitate me.
17That’s why I sent Timothy to you. He is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, and he will remind you of my ways in Christ, just as I teach everywhere in every church.
18Some of you have become arrogant, as if I were not coming to visit you.
19But I will come to you very soon, if the Lord allows. Then I will find out not what these arrogant people say, but what power they actually have.
20Because God’s Kingdom is not about talk, but about power.
21What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a rod to punish you, or with love and a gentle spirit?