The ability to become such.

I planted,

Apollos watered,

3:5.

But it was God who caused it to grow.
So then, neither is he who does the planting

anything,

Nor he who does the watering,

But God who causes it to grow.

Now he who does the planting and he who does the watering are together one means to a common end. But each will receive his own wages according to his own labor. For God's fellow-laborers are we: God's cultivated land, God's house, are you.

As a result of the favor which God bestowed on me, like a skilful master builder, I laid a foundation, but another is building on it. But let each man see to it how he is building on it. For no other foundation is any one able to lay beside the one already laid, and he is Jesus Christ. But if any one builds on the foundation gold, silver, costly stones, wood hay, straw, each man's work will become known. For the day of our Lord's coming will make it plain. For it is revealed in fire, and each man's work will have its quality tested by the fire. If any one's work which he built on the foundation continues, he will receive his wages: if any one's work shall be burnt up, he will be the loser, but he

himself w be saved. But this will bigger, 80 20 speak, by means of the fire.

Do you not know that you are God's Holy Place, and the Spirit of God is making his home among you? If any one destroys God's Holy Place, God will destroy him. For the Holy Place of God is holy, and so are you.

Let no one deceive himself. If any one thirks he has standing among you, as a wise man of this world, let him become a fool, so that he may be come really wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written :

He catches the wise in their own craftiness,

And again:

Jehovah knows the reasonings of the wise,
That they are vain.

For every

So, then, let no one boast about men. thing is yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or the present, or the future,-everything is yours. But you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

Let every one think of us as assistants of Christ, and stewards of the secrets of God. Now in this world, when one is looking for a steward, he makes diligent inquiry so as to find one to be relied on. But it is a very little thing to me to be judged by you, or by any human method. On the con

4: 3.

trary, I do not even judge myself. For I know nothing against myself-although that proves nothing, but my judge is the Lord. So, then, pass no judgments before the proper time, till the Lord comes, and then he will throw light on hidden secrets, and will make plain the motives of men's hearts. Yes, praise will then come to each one of us from God.

Now, in saying these things, brothers, I have, for your sakes, applied them to myself and Apollos, so that you may learn the rule :

"Not beyond what is written."

And so let none of you speak boastfully of the one to the disparagement of the other.

For who makes And what have you

But if you received

you to differ from another? which you did not receive? it, why are you boasting as if you did not receive it? Have you already become satisfied? Have you already become rich? Have you become kings without us? Yes, I wish you really were kings, so that we also might be kings with you. And yet, it seems to me, God has brought out us Apostles last of all, as men doomed to death. For we have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, both to angels and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are men of sound sense. We are weak, but you are strong. You are honored, but we are despised. To this very

1 COR.

4: 11.

DEAR CHILDREN.

47

hour we are both hungry, and thirsty, and poorly clad. We are beaten. We have no settled home. We labor incessantly, working with our own hands. When we are abused, we bless. When we are persecuted, we endure. When we are slandered, we gently appeal to our traducers. We have been treated as the scum of the earth, as the vilest of the vile, to this very moment.

It is not with a desire to put you to shame I am writing these things. On the contrary, as my dear children, I am giving you warning. For even if you should have ten thousand tutors in Christ, yet you have not many fathers. For, by means of the Good News, I myself became your father in Christ Jesus. So I beg you to become imitators of me. For this reason I have sent Timothy to you. He is my dear and faithful child in the Lord, and he will remind you of my ways in Christ Jesus, just as I teach everywhere in every Church.

Now some have assumed a lofty air, as though I am not going to visit you. But I shall visit you very soon, if the Lord wills, and then I shall get to know, not the words of those who have assumed such a lofty air, but their power. For the Kingdom of God does not consist of words, but of power.

What do you desire? Shall I visit you with a rod, or in a spirit of love and gentleness?

5:1.

have not been

this thing might Then I, for my

It is actually reported that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not even found among the heathen, that one of you is living with his own stepmother as his wife. And yet you have assumed a lofty air, and grieved, so that the man who did be taken away from among you? part, absent in body, but present in spirit, and in the name of Jesus, our Lord, have already decided, as though I were present, about the man who has done this thing in such a way. So when you have met together, and my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ is with you, hand such a man over to Satan for the destruction of his carnal nature, so that his spirit may be safe on the day when the Lord finally comes. Your boasting is not honorable. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole mass? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a fresh mass, just as you are by profession unleavened.

For our Pascal Lamb, has, indeed, been slain, And it is Christ.

So, then, let us keep our feast,

Not with the old leaven,

Nor with the leaven of vice and wickedness, But with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.