Book of Common Prayer

¹⁴ The person who does not have the Spirit does not receive the blessings of the Spirit of God. He thinks they are foolish. He cannot understand them because only people who have the Spirit of God can test them.

¹⁵ He who has the Spirit of God tests all things. But others cannot test him.

¹⁶ The holy writings say: `Who knows the mind of the Lord so that he may teach him?' As for us, we really do have the mind of Christ.

3 My brothers, I could not talk to you at first as to people who have the Spirit of God. But I talked to you as people who have the spirit of this world. I talked to you as people who are very new-born, baby Christians.

² I gave you milk to drink, not food to eat. You were not ready for food. And even now you are not ready for it.

³ You still have the spirit of this world in you. You are jealous of each other and you are quarrelling. The spirit of this world is still in you and you live like people of this world.

⁴ One says, `I belong to Paul.' Another says, `I belong to Apollos.' Does not that show that you have the spirit of this world?

⁵ After all, who is Apollos? And who is Paul? We both work for God. You believed because of the work we did. The Lord gave each of us our work to do.

⁶ I planted the seed. Apollos put water on the seed. But God made the seed grow.

⁷ So then the man who plants is nothing and the man who waters is nothing. God alone makes the seed grow.

⁸ The man who plants and the man who waters are equal. Each one will be paid for his own work.

⁹ We work together for God. You are God's farm. You are God's house.

¹⁰ I built the lower walls of the house because God showed me the best way to do it. Now another man builds on top of this foundation. Each man must take care how he builds on it.

¹¹ Jesus Christ himself is the foundation. No one can make another one.

¹² People build with gold, silver, very fine stones, wood, grass, or straw on top of the foundation.

¹³ But the day will come when everyone's work can be seen. Their work will be tested by fire and the fire will show what kind of work each one did.

¹⁴ If the work a man did is not burned up in the fire, he will be paid for his work.

¹⁵ But if a man's work is burned up, he will lose everything. He himself will be saved, like a man pulled out of the fire.

2 After a few days he came back to Capernaum. People soon heard that he was at home.

² Many came together right away. The house was full. There was no more room, not even outside near the door. Jesus was telling them God's message.

³ Four men brought a sick man to Jesus. The man could not move his arms or legs.

⁴ But they could not get in the house where Jesus was, because there were so many people. So they went up on the roof. They made a hole in the roof. Then they let down the mat with the sick man on it.

⁵ Jesus saw that they believed he would be healed. So he said to the sick man, `Son, the wrong things you have done are forgiven.'

⁶ Some of the scribes were sitting there.

⁷ They were thinking, `Why does this man say such wrong things against God? He is not giving God respect! Who can forgive the wrong things people do? No one but God can do that.'

⁸ Jesus understood in his spirit what the scribes were thinking. He said right away, `Why do you think these wrong things in your hearts?

⁹ Which is easier, to say to the sick man, "The wrong things you have done are forgiven," or to say, "Get up. Take up your mat and walk"?

¹⁰ I want you to know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive the wrong things people do.' So he said to the sick man,

¹¹ `I tell you, get up! Take up your mat and go home.'

¹² Right away the man stood up in front of them. He took up his mat and went home. They were all very much surprised, and they praised God. They said, `We have never seen anything like this before.'