What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each.
but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities,
Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.
As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace:
who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.
For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.
And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it.
And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues.
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit,
For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward, but if not of my own will, I am still entrusted with a stewardship.
This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.
So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith;
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”
John answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven.
just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us,
To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.
of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known,
Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of his power.
Unless otherwise indicated, all content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Contact me: openbibleinfo (at) gmail.com.