What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.
Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God,
Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.
Whoever mocks the poor insults his Maker; he who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished.
Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court?
if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.
for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church?
But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse.
Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you.
For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
Unless otherwise indicated, all content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Contact me: openbibleinfo (at) gmail.com.