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1 Corinthians 4

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📖 1 Corinthians introduction

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1So let a man think of us as Christ’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 man’s judgment. Yes, I don’t judge my own self. ✦ 4For I know nothing against myself. Yet I am not justified 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 reign 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 Christ’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 Christ, yet not 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 Christ, 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 the word 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? ✦

Tap any verse for its study page. Underlined terms mark a concept, person, or place; ✦ marks verses with cross-references.

Where this chapter connects

1 Cor 3 ·131 Cor 4 ·121 Cor 9 ·102 Cor 10 ·91 Cor 1 ·92 Cor 11 ·82 Cor 12 ·7Matt 25 ·7

Christ at the center

Christ crucified is the wisdom and power of God; he is our Passover sacrificed for us, the firstfruits of resurrection, the foundation on which everything is built.

How 1 Corinthians 4 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

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    A clear ~10-minute audio teaching for every one of the Bible's 1,189 chapters — the most systematic free way to study chapter by chapter.

Pastoral

  • SermonChuck Smith — C2000 SeriesChuck Smith · Free · evangelical

    Free verse-by-verse audio through the entire Bible from the founder of Calvary Chapel.

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  • ★ Start hereApologeticsGary Habermas — the resurrectionGary Habermas · Free · evangelical

    130+ free videos and lectures from the scholar behind the "minimal facts" method — the start-here on the historical evidence for the resurrection. (Only his books are paid.)

Commentaries & study tools

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