1 Corinthians 4:14-21

Lexham English Bible

Paul’s Concern for the Corinthian Believers

¹⁴ I am not writing these things to shame you, but admonishing you as my dear children. ¹⁵ For if you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I fathered you through the gospel. ¹⁶ Therefore I exhort you, become imitators of me. ¹⁷ Because of this, I have sent to you Timothy, who is my dear and faithful child in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways in Christ Jesus, just as I teach everywhere in every church. ¹⁸ But some have become arrogant, as if I were not coming to you. ¹⁹ But I am coming to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will know not the talk of the ones who have become arrogant, but the power. ²⁰ For the kingdom of God is not with talk, but with power. ²¹ What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love and a spirit of gentleness?