Apostolic Ministry

14  But thanks be to God who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and who makes known through us the fragrance that consists of the knowledge of him in every place. 15  For we are a sweet aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing – 16  to the latter an odor from death to death, but to the former a fragrance from life to life. And who is adequate for these things? 17  For we are not like so many others, hucksters who peddle the word of God for profit, but we are speaking in Christ before God as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God.

3  Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? We don’t need letters of recommendation to you or from you as some other people do, do we? 2  You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone, 3  revealing that you are a letter of Christ, delivered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets but on tablets of human hearts.

4  Now we have such confidence in God through Christ. 5  Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as if it were coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, 6  who made us adequate to be servants of a new covenant not based on the letter but on the Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.