Book of Common Prayer

⁸ Do you really suppose you’ve already had all the food you need? Do you think you’ve already become rich? Do you think you’ve already been crowned as royalty, leaving us behind? I wish you really were already reigning, so that we could reign alongside you!

⁹ This is how I look at it, you see: God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like people sentenced to death. We have become a public show for the world, for angels and humans alike. ¹⁰ We are fools because of the Messiah, but you are wise in the Messiah! We are weak, but you are strong! You are celebrated, we are nobodies! ¹¹ Yes, right up to the present moment we go hungry and thirsty; we are badly clothed, roughly treated, with no home to call our own. ¹² What’s more, we work hard, doing manual labor. When we are insulted, we give back blessings. When we are persecuted, we put up with it. ¹³ When we are slandered, we speak gently in return. To this day we have become like the rubbish of the world, fit only to be scraped off the plate and thrown away with everything else.

Puffed up or powerful?

¹⁴ I’m not writing this to make you ashamed! I am simply treating you as dear children, and putting you straight. ¹⁵ You’ve got a thousand babysitters in Christ, I know, but you haven’t got many fathers—because I became your father in the Messiah, Jesus, through the gospel.

¹⁶ So let me appeal to you: copy me! ¹⁷ That’s why I have sent Timothy to you; he’s my child in the Lord, and I love him and trust him. He will remind you how I conduct myself in the Messiah Jesus, just as I teach everywhere, in every assembly.

¹⁸ Some people are getting puffed up, as though I wasn’t going to come to you. ¹⁹ But I will come to you quickly, if the Lord wants it that way; and then I’ll find out, not what these puffed-up people are saying, but how powerful they are. ²⁰ The kingdom of God, you see, isn’t about talk—it’s about power. ²¹ What d’you want, then? Shall I come to you with a big stick, or with love, and in a gentle spirit?

The Twelve are appointed

⁷ Jesus went off towards the sea with his disciples, and a large crowd from Galilee followed him. A great company, too, from Judaea, ⁸ Jerusalem, Idumaea, Transjordan, and the region of Tyre and Sidon, heard what he was doing and came to him.

⁹ There was a real danger that he might be crushed by the crowd, so he told his disciples to get a boat ready for him. ¹⁰ He healed large numbers, and sick people were pushing towards him to touch him. ¹¹ Whenever unclean spirits saw him, they fell down in front of him and yelled out, “You are the son of God!” ¹² He gave them strict orders not to reveal his identity.

¹³ Jesus went up the mountain, and summoned the people he wanted, and they came to him. ¹⁴ He appointed twelve (naming them “apostles”) to be with him and to be sent out as heralds, ¹⁵ and to have authority to cast out demons. ¹⁶ In appointing the Twelve, he named Simon “Peter”; ¹⁷ James, son of Zebedee, and his brother John, he named “Boanerges,” which means “sons of thunder.” The others were ¹⁸ Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Cananaean, ¹⁹ and Judas Iscariot (the one who handed him over).