91 And don't tell me that I have no authority to write like this. I'm perfectly free to do this - isn't that obvious? Haven't I been given a job to do? Wasn't I commissioned to this work in a face-to-face meeting with Jesus, our Master? Aren't you yourselves proof of the good work that I've done for the Master? 2 Even if no one else admits the authority of my commission, you can't deny it. Why, my work with you is living proof of my authority!
3 I'm not shy in standing up to my critics. 4 We who are on missionary assignments for God have a right to decent accommodations, 5 and we have a right to support for us and our families. You don't seem to have raised questions with the other apostles and our Master's brothers and Peter in these matters. 6 So, why me? Is it just Barnabas and I who have to go it alone and pay our own way? 7 Are soldiers self-employed? Are gardeners forbidden to eat vegetables from their own gardens? Don't milkmaids get to drink their fill from the pail? 8 I'm not just sounding off because I'm irritated. This is all written in the scriptural law. 9 Moses wrote, "Don't muzzle an ox to keep it from eating the grain when it's threshing." Do you think Moses' primary concern was the care of farm animals? 10 Don't you think his concern extends to us? Of course. Farmers plow and thresh expecting something when the crop comes in. 11 So if we have planted spiritual seed among you, is it out of line to expect a meal or two from you? 12 Others demand plenty from you in these ways. Don't we who have never demanded deserve even more? 13 All I'm concerned with right now is that you not use our decision to take advantage of others, depriving them of what is rightly theirs. You know, don't you, that it's always been taken for granted that those who work in the Temple live off the proceeds of the Temple, and that those who offer sacrifices at the altar eat their meals from what has been sacrificed? 14 Along the same lines, the Master directed that those who spread the Message be supported by those who believe the Message.
15 Still, I want it made clear that I've never gotten anything out of this for myself, and that I'm not writing now to get something. I'd rather die than give anyone ammunition to discredit me or impugn my motives. 16 If I proclaim the Message, it's not to get something out of it for myself. I'm compelled to do it, and doomed if I don't! 17 If this was my own idea of just another way to make a living, I'd expect some pay. But since it's not my idea but something solemnly entrusted to me, why would I expect to get paid? 18 So am I getting anything out of it? Yes, as a matter of fact: the pleasure of proclaiming the Message at no cost to you. You don't even have to pay my expenses!
19 Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: 20 religious, nonreligious, 21 meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, 22 the defeated, the demoralized - whoever. I didn't take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ - but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I've become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. 23 I did all this because of the Message. I didn't just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!
24 You've all been to the stadium and seen the athletes race. Everyone runs; one wins. Run to win. 25 All good athletes train hard. They do it for a gold medal that tarnishes and fades. You're after one that's gold eternally. 26 I don't know about you, but I'm running hard for the finish line. I'm giving it everything I've got. No sloppy living for me! 27 I'm staying alert and in top condition. I'm not going to get caught napping, telling everyone else all about it and then missing out myself.
31 But for right now, friends, I'm completely frustrated by your unspiritual dealings with each other and with God. You're acting like infants in relation to Christ, 2 capable of nothing much more than nursing at the breast. Well, then, I'll nurse you since you don't seem capable of anything more. 3 As long as you grab for what makes you feel good or makes you look important, are you really much different than a babe at the breast, content only when everything's going your way? 4 When one of you says, "I'm on Paul's side," and another says, "I'm for Apollos," aren't you being totally infantile?
5 Who do you think Paul is, anyway? Or Apollos, for that matter? Servants, both of us - servants who waited on you as you gradually learned to entrust your lives to our mutual Master. We each carried out our servant assignment. 6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered the plants, but God made you grow. 7 It's not the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the center of this process but God, who makes things grow. 8 Planting and watering are menial servant jobs at minimum wages. 9 What makes them worth doing is the God we are serving. You happen to be God's field in which we are working. 10 Using the gift God gave me as a good architect, I designed blueprints; Apollos is putting up the walls. Let each carpenter who comes on the job take care to build on the foundation!
11 Remember, there is only one foundation, the one already laid: Jesus Christ. 12 Take particular care in picking out your building materials. 13 Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you'll be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won't get by with a thing. 14 If your work passes inspection, fine; 15 if it doesn't, your part of the building will be torn out and started over. But you won't be torn out; you'll survive - but just barely.
16 You realize, don't you, that you are the temple of God, and God himself is present in you? 17 No one will get by with vandalizing God's temple, you can be sure of that. God's temple is sacred - and you, remember, are the temple.
18 Don't fool yourself. Don't think that you can be wise merely by being up-to-date with the times. 19 Be God's fool - that's the path to true wisdom. What the world calls smart, God calls stupid. It's written in Scripture, He exposes the chicanery of the chic. 20 The Master sees through the smoke screens of the know-it-alls.
21 I don't want to hear any of you bragging about yourself or anyone else. Everything is already yours as a gift - 22 Paul, Apollos, Peter, the world, life, death, the present, the future - all of it is yours, 23 and you are privileged to be in union with Christ, who is in union with God.
