Fatherly Admonition

¹⁴ I am not writing this to make you ashamed but to admonish you as my beloved children. ¹⁵ For though you might have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. Indeed, in Christ Jesus I fathered you through the gospel.^{(A) 16} I appeal to you, then, be imitators of me.^{(B) 17} For this reason I sent^[a] you Timothy, who is my beloved and trustworthy child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ Jesus, as I teach them everywhere in every church. ¹⁸ But some of you, thinking that I am not coming to you, have become arrogant. ¹⁹ But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power.^{(C) 20} For the kingdom of God depends not on talk but on power. ²¹ What would you prefer? Am I to come to you with a stick or with love in a spirit of gentleness?^(D)