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4 I want people to think of us who proclaim the good news as those who serve the Messiah and who are in charge of proclaiming what God has now revealed to us. 2 Whenever a leader puts another person in charge, the leader requires that person to do his or her tasks faithfully. In the same way, God requires that we who proclaim the good news do our task faithfully. 3 I do not worry about what you or any other human authority decides about whether I have acted faithfully or not. In fact, I do not even worry about what I myself decide about whether I have acted faithfully or not. 4 In fact, I do not know about anything I have done wrong. However, what I know about myself does not prove that I have acted faithfully. Rather, it is the Lord who will decide whether I have acted faithfully or not. 5 So then, you should not finally decide about anything until the Lord comes back to judge everyone and everything. He will make clear what is now hidden, and he will show everyone what each person desires and plans. At that time, God will praise each person who has acted faithfully.
6 My fellow believers, I have talked in this way about myself and Apollos for your benefit. I want you to learn from our example that you should act only in ways that fit with what the authors of the Scriptures wrote. Then, nobody will speak great things about one leader and bad things about another leader. 7 Nobody has set you apart from every other believer. In fact, God has given to you every good thing that you have. Since these things are gifts from God, you should not say proudly that you yourself earned them.
8 You are acting as if you currently have everything that you need spiritually. You are acting as if you currently have more spiritual blessings than you need. You are acting as if you have currently begun to rule with Christ, even though we who proclaim the good news are not ruling with Christ now. Indeed, I wish that you really were ruling with him, in order that we who proclaim the good news could be ruling with you. 9 Rather than thinking that we rule with Christ now, I consider us apostles to be those whom God has appointed to suffer humiliation and to die. We suffer humiliation and die publicly, and everything that God has created, including spiritual beings and humans, can see us. 10 We seem to be foolish people because we serve the Messiah, but you think that you are wise people because God unites you to the Messiah. We seem to be people who do not have power or influence, but you think that you do have these things. You think that people praise you, but those people shame us. 11 Even now as I write this letter to you, we whom Christ has sent have often not had enough food or drink. We wear ragged clothing, and others repeatedly strike us. We constantly travel and do not return to a home. 12 We do manual labor to earn a living. When people speak badly to us, we say good things about them. When people hurt us because we serve the Messiah, we patiently live through it. 13 When people say bad things about us, we say encouraging words to them. From a human perspective, we are worthless, like filthy garbage that someone should throw away. All these things are true about us even now as I write this letter to you.
14 I do not include in my letter what I have just finished saying because I want to make you ashamed. Rather, I include these things because I want to admonish you, since you are like my own children, whom I love. 15 When I first preached the good news to you, and God united you to Jesus the Messiah, I became your spiritual father. So, even if you had a million teachers who helped you to live in union with the Messiah, I would still be the only spiritual father you have. 16 Because I am your spiritual father, I plead with you to imitate how I live. 17 Because I want you to imitate me, I had Timothy visit you. He is like my own child, and I love him. He faithfully serves the Messiah as one whom God has united to the Lord. He will teach you again about how I behave as one whom God has united to the Messiah Jesus. I instruct every church in every place that I visit to behave in these ways.
18 Some of you are saying great things about yourselves. These people act as if I were not about to visit you. 19 However, I will visit you very soon, as long as the Lord wants me to do so. I already know what these people who say great things about themselves claim. When I visit you, I will learn whether they are actually powerful or not. 20 I will do this because God’s kingdom functions by God working powerfully through people, not by people saying great things. 21 When you choose how you will respond to what I am saying, you are also choosing how I will act when I visit. When I visit you, I can either harshly discipline you because you did not listen, or I can act gently and lovingly because you did listen.