1 Corinthians 4

₁You must remember that we are working for Christ. He gave us the truth of God and said we must explain it to people who know nothing about it. ₂Someone who does this work must always be faithful and do what God wants him to do. ₃But it is not important to me what people or a judge thinks of my work. I don't even try to decide myself if I have done the right thing. ₄I don't know of anything that I have done wrong, but I don't say that I am innocent. God will say if I am guilty or not. ₅That is why you must not judge anyone now, before the time is right. Wait until the Lord comes. He knows every secret and what people are hiding in the dark or in their hearts, and He will show it to everyone. Then God will praise every person who has done good work.

₆Friends, Apollos and I are doing the things that I wrote about. We do this for you because we want to teach you. You can read in the Old_Testament what happened to people who thought they were important. Remember: No one must say that one person is more important than another person. ₇Why do you think you are better than someone else? Everything that you have, God gave you. Why do you boast about the things that you did not work for? ₈You think you can be pleased with yourselves. You think you have enough of everything. You think you have become kings, but we, the apostles, are not kings. I wish you had become kings, then we would have been kings with you, but you are not.

₉We are apostles, but I think God made us unimportant and He gave us the last place of all people. We are like prisoners on our way to die in a place where everyone can see us. And now everyone in the world, angels and people, can see how we die. ₁₀Everyone thinks that we, the apostles, are fools because we work for Christ. And you think you are very clever now because you know Christ. You think we are weak but you are strong. You think you are important and we are not important. ₁₁Look at everything that has happened to us: We are hungry and thirsty, we wear old and torn clothes, people beat us, and we do not have a home where we can live. ₁₂We work very hard for food and clothes for ourselves. When people curse us, we pray that God will bless them. When they do bad things to us, we keep quiet and hold out. ₁₃When they say bad things about us, we try to say something good that will help them. We have become like the worst people in the world, like dirt. We are like dirty things that people throw away.

₁₄I write these things not to make you feel ashamed, but to teach you. You are my children and I love you. ₁₅There are many people who teach you about Christ. They look after you like people who look after children. But you do not have many fathers. You have only one father. I became your father when I told you the Good_News of Jesus Christ and when you started to believe in Him. ₁₆That is why I beg you to live as I live. ₁₇That is why I sent Timothy to you. I have helped Timothy to know the Lord Jesus and now he is like a son to me, and I love him very much. He is faithful and will do what he has to do. He will help you to remember what I teach people. They are the same things that Christ Jesus told the people, the same things that I teach people in the other congregations.

₁₈Some of you thought I would never come to you again and they think they are very important now. ₁₉But I will soon come to you, if God wants me to come. I will find out if these people only talk or if they also do something. ₂₀Because where God is King, people don't only talk about the things that God wants. They also do them with the power that God gives them. ₂₁You can choose what I must do when I come to you: Must I be angry or must I be loving and friendly?