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1 Corinthians 4
1So let a man think of us as ’s servants and stewards of God’s mysteries.
2Here, moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.
3But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you, or by a human court. Yes, I don’t even judge my own self.
4For I know nothing against myself. Yet I am not by this, but he who judges me is the Lord.
5Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each man will get his praise from God.
6Now these things, brothers, I have in a figure transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes, that in us you might learn not to think beyond the things which are written, that none of you be puffed up against one another.
7For who makes you different? And what do you have that you didn’t receive? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?
8You are already filled. You have already become rich. You have come to without us. Yes, and I wish that you did reign, that we also might reign with you!
9For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last of all, like men sentenced to death. For we are made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and men.
10We are fools for ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You have honor, but we have dishonor.
11Even to this present hour we hunger, thirst, are naked, are beaten, and have no certain dwelling place.
12We toil, working with our own hands. When people curse us, we bless. Being persecuted, we endure.
13Being defamed, we entreat. We are made as the filth of the world, the dirt wiped off by all, even until now.
14I don’t write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children.
15For though you have ten thousand tutors in , you don’t have many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, I became your father through the Good News.
16I beg you therefore, be imitators of me.
17Because of this I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways which are in , even as I teach everywhere in every assembly.
18Now some are puffed up, as though I were not coming to you.
19But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord is willing. And I will know, not of those who are puffed up, but the power.
20For God’s Kingdom is not in word, but in power.
21What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness?
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Questions this passage answers
Can the Bible be trusted?
Scripture claims to be true and invites examination rather than avoiding it. It says God's word is truth and that it stands when everything else fades, and the New Testament writers appeal to eyewitnesses, named places and public events rather than to private experience. Trust in Scripture is finally trust in the God who speaks in it, and the clearest reason a Christian gives for that trust is that Jesus treated these writings as God's own word.
Who is the Holy Spirit?
Scripture speaks of the Holy Spirit as a person rather than a force. Jesus calls him another Counselor whom the Father sends, and says he teaches, reminds, guides, convicts and speaks. Peter calls lying to the Holy Spirit lying to God. He is the one who gives new birth, dwells in believers, produces Christlike character, and always points to Christ rather than to himself.
How do I resist temptation?
Scripture says God always provides a way of escape, that temptation begins with desire inside us rather than with God, and that the ordinary means of resisting are watching, praying, walking by the Spirit, hiding God's word in the heart, and fleeing rather than negotiating. It does not promise that temptation stops, and it sends the tempted person to a High Priest who was tempted himself and can be approached for help.
Did Jesus really rise from the dead?
The New Testament says yes and puts the claim in a form that can be tested rather than admired. Paul lists named witnesses and a group of over five hundred still living when he wrote. The accounts describe a body that could be touched and that ate, not a vision. They also record the first alternative explanation, that the disciples stole him, and record who paid for it. Scripture treats the resurrection as the point on which everything stands or falls, and says so in those words.