Peter's Report to the Church at Jerusalem

¹The apostles and the other believers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God.

²When Peter went to Jerusalem, those who were in favor of circumcising Gentiles criticized him, saying,

³“You were a guest in the home of uncircumcised Gentiles, and you even ate with them!”

⁴So Peter gave them a complete account of what had happened from the very beginning:

⁵“While I was praying in the city of Joppa, I had a vision. I saw something coming down that looked like a large sheet being lowered by its four corners from heaven, and it stopped next to me.

⁶I looked closely inside and saw domesticated and wild animals, reptiles, and wild birds.

⁷Then I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat!’

⁸But I said, ‘Certainly not, Lord! No ritually unclean or defiled food has ever entered my mouth.’

⁹The voice spoke again from heaven, ‘Do not consider anything unclean that God has declared clean.’

¹⁰This happened three times, and finally the whole thing was drawn back up into heaven.

¹¹At that very moment three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea arrived at the house where I was staying.

¹²The Spirit told me to go with them without hesitation. These six fellow believers from Joppa accompanied me to Caesarea, and we all went into the house of Cornelius.

¹³He told us how he had seen an angel standing in his house, who said to him, ‘Send someone to Joppa for a man whose full name is Simon Peter.

¹⁴He will speak words to you by which you and all your family will be saved.’

¹⁵And when I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came down on them just as on us at the beginning.

¹⁶Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’

¹⁷It is clear that God gave those Gentiles the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ; who was I, then, to try to stop God!”

¹⁸When they heard this, they stopped their criticism and praised God, saying, “Then God has given to the Gentiles also the opportunity to repent and live!”

The Church at Antioch

¹⁹Some of the believers who were scattered by the persecution which took place when Stephen was killed went as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, telling the message to Jews only.

²⁰But other believers, who were from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and proclaimed the message to Gentiles also, telling them the Good News about the Lord Jesus.

²¹The Lord's power was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.

²²The news about this reached the church in Jerusalem, so they sent Barnabas to Antioch.

²³When he arrived and saw how God had blessed the people, he was glad and urged them all to be faithful and true to the Lord with all their hearts.

²⁴Barnabas was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and many people were brought to the Lord.

²⁵Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul.

²⁶When he found him, he took him to Antioch, and for a whole year the two met with the people of the church and taught a large group. It was at Antioch that the believers were first called Christians.

²⁷About that time some prophets went from Jerusalem to Antioch.

²⁸One of them, named Agabus, stood up and by the power of the Spirit predicted that a severe famine was about to come over all the earth. (It came when Claudius was emperor.)

²⁹The disciples decided that they each would send as much as they could to help their fellow believers who lived in Judea.

³⁰They did this, then, and sent the money to the church elders by Barnabas and Saul.

Servants of God

¹As a matter of fact, my friends, I could not talk to you as I talk to people who have the Spirit; I had to talk to you as though you belonged to this world, as children in the Christian faith.

²I had to feed you milk, not solid food, because you were not ready for it. And even now you are not ready for it,

³because you still live as the people of this world live. When there is jealousy among you and you quarrel with one another, doesn't this prove that you belong to this world, living by its standards?

⁴When one of you says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos”—aren't you acting like worldly people?

⁵After all, who is Apollos? And who is Paul? We are simply God's servants, by whom you were led to believe. Each one of us does the work which the Lord gave him to do:

⁶I planted the seed, Apollos watered the plant, but it was God who made the plant grow.

⁷The one who plants and the one who waters really do not matter. It is God who matters, because he makes the plant grow.

⁸There is no difference between the one who plants and the one who waters; God will reward each one according to the work each has done.

⁹For we are partners working together for God, and you are God's field. You are also God's building.

¹⁰Using the gift that God gave me, I did the work of an expert builder and laid the foundation, and someone else is building on it. But each of you must be careful how you build.

¹¹For God has already placed Jesus Christ as the one and only foundation, and no other foundation can be laid.

¹²Some will use gold or silver or precious stones in building on the foundation; others will use wood or grass or straw.

¹³And the quality of each person's work will be seen when the Day of Christ exposes it. For on that Day fire will reveal everyone's work; the fire will test it and show its real quality.

¹⁴If what was built on the foundation survives the fire, the builder will receive a reward.

¹⁵But if your work is burnt up, then you will lose it; but you yourself will be saved, as if you had escaped through the fire.

¹⁶Surely you know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you!

¹⁷God will destroy anyone who destroys God's temple. For God's temple is holy, and you yourselves are his temple.

¹⁸You should not fool yourself. If any of you think that you are wise by this world's standards, you should become a fool, in order to be really wise.

¹⁹For what this world considers to be wisdom is nonsense in God's sight. As the scripture says, “God traps the wise in their cleverness”;

²⁰and another scripture says, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are worthless.”

²¹No one, then, should boast about what human beings can do. Actually everything belongs to you:

²²Paul, Apollos, and Peter; this world, life and death, the present and the future—all these are yours,

²³and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

Apostles of Christ

¹You should think of us as Christ's servants, who have been put in charge of God's secret truths.

²The one thing required of such servants is that they be faithful to their master.

³Now, I am not at all concerned about being judged by you or by any human standard; I don't even pass judgment on myself.

⁴My conscience is clear, but that does not prove that I am really innocent. The Lord is the one who passes judgment on me.

⁵So you should not pass judgment on anyone before the right time comes. Final judgment must wait until the Lord comes; he will bring to light the dark secrets and expose the hidden purposes of people's minds. And then all will receive from God the praise they deserve.

⁶For your sake, my friends, I have applied all this to Apollos and me, using the two of us as an example, so that you may learn what the saying means, “Observe the proper rules.” None of you should be proud of one person and despise another.

⁷Who made you superior to others? Didn't God give you everything you have? Well, then, how can you boast, as if what you have were not a gift?

⁸Do you already have everything you need? Are you already rich? Have you become kings, even though we are not? Well, I wish you really were kings, so that we could be kings together with you.

⁹For it seems to me that God has given the very last place to us apostles, like people condemned to die in public as a spectacle for the whole world of angels and of human beings.

¹⁰For Christ's sake we are fools; but you are wise in union with Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! We are despised, but you are honored!

¹¹To this very moment we go hungry and thirsty; we are clothed in rags; we are beaten; we wander from place to place;

¹²we wear ourselves out with hard work. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure;

¹³when we are insulted, we answer back with kind words. We are no more than this world's garbage; we are the scum of the earth to this very moment!

¹⁴I write this to you, not because I want to make you feel ashamed, but to instruct you as my own dear children.

¹⁵For even if you have ten thousand guardians in your Christian life, you have only one father. For in your life in union with Christ Jesus I have become your father by bringing the Good News to you.

¹⁶I beg you, then, to follow my example.

¹⁷For this purpose I am sending to you Timothy, who is my own dear and faithful son in the Christian life. He will remind you of the principles which I follow in the new life in union with Christ Jesus and which I teach in all the churches everywhere.

¹⁸Some of you have become proud because you have thought that I would not be coming to visit you.

¹⁹If the Lord is willing, however, I will come to you soon, and then I will find out for myself the power which these proud people have, and not just what they say.

²⁰For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of words but of power.

²¹Which do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a whip, or in a spirit of love and gentleness?

²³Look after your sheep and cattle as carefully as you can,

²⁴because wealth is not permanent. Not even nations last forever.

²⁵You cut the hay and then cut the grass on the hillsides while the next crop of hay is growing.

²⁶You can make clothes from the wool of your sheep and buy land with the money you get from selling some of your goats.

²⁷The rest of the goats will provide milk for you and your family, and for your servant women as well.