In Iconium

¹The same thing happened in Iconium: Paul and Barnabas went to the synagogue and spoke in such a way that a great number of Jews and Gentiles became believers.

²But the Jews who would not believe stirred up the Gentiles and turned them against the believers.

³The apostles stayed there for a long time, speaking boldly about the Lord, who proved that their message about his grace was true by giving them the power to perform miracles and wonders.

⁴The people of the city were divided: some were for the Jews, others for the apostles.

⁵Then some Gentiles and Jews, together with their leaders, decided to mistreat the apostles and stone them.

⁶When the apostles learned about it, they fled to the cities of Lystra and Derbe in Lycaonia and to the surrounding territory.

⁷There they preached the Good News.

In Lystra and Derbe

⁸In Lystra there was a crippled man who had been lame from birth and had never been able to walk.

⁹He sat there and listened to Paul's words. Paul saw that he believed and could be healed, so he looked straight at him

¹⁰and said in a loud voice, “Stand up straight on your feet!” The man jumped up and started walking around.

¹¹When the crowds saw what Paul had done, they started shouting in their own Lycaonian language, “The gods have become like men and have come down to us!”

¹²They gave Barnabas the name Zeus, and Paul the name Hermes, because he was the chief speaker.

¹³The priest of the god Zeus, whose temple stood just outside the town, brought bulls and flowers to the gate, for he and the crowds wanted to offer sacrifice to the apostles.

¹⁴When Barnabas and Paul heard what they were about to do, they tore their clothes and ran into the middle of the crowd, shouting,

¹⁵“Why are you doing this? We ourselves are only human beings like you! We are here to announce the Good News, to turn you away from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven, earth, sea, and all that is in them.

¹⁶In the past he allowed all people to go their own way.

¹⁷But he has always given evidence of his existence by the good things he does: he gives you rain from heaven and crops at the right times; he gives you food and fills your hearts with happiness.”

¹⁸Even with these words the apostles could hardly keep the crowd from offering a sacrifice to them.

¹⁹Some Jews came from Antioch in Pisidia and from Iconium; they won the crowds over to their side, stoned Paul and dragged him out of the town, thinking that he was dead.

²⁰But when the believers gathered around him, he got up and went back into the town. The next day he and Barnabas went to Derbe.

The Return to Antioch in Syria

²¹Paul and Barnabas preached the Good News in Derbe and won many disciples. Then they went back to Lystra, to Iconium, and on to Antioch in Pisidia.

²²They strengthened the believers and encouraged them to remain true to the faith. “We must pass through many troubles to enter the Kingdom of God,” they taught.

²³In each church they appointed elders, and with prayers and fasting they commended them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust.

²⁴After going through the territory of Pisidia, they came to Pamphylia.

²⁵There they preached the message in Perga and then went to Attalia,

²⁶and from there they sailed back to Antioch, the place where they had been commended to the care of God's grace for the work they had now completed.

²⁷When they arrived in Antioch, they gathered the people of the church together and told them about all that God had done with them and how he had opened the way for the Gentiles to believe.

²⁸And they stayed a long time there with the believers.

Rights and Duties of an Apostle

¹Am I not a free man? Am I not an apostle? Haven't I seen Jesus our Lord? And aren't you the result of my work for the Lord?

²Even if others do not accept me as an apostle, surely you do! Because of your life in union with the Lord you yourselves are proof of the fact that I am an apostle.

³When people criticize me, this is how I defend myself:

⁴Don't I have the right to be given food and drink for my work?

⁵Don't I have the right to follow the example of the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Peter, by taking a Christian wife with me on my trips?

⁶Or are Barnabas and I the only ones who have to work for our living?

⁷What soldiers ever have to pay their own expenses in the army? What farmers do not eat the grapes from their own vineyard? What shepherds do not use the milk from their own sheep?

⁸I don't have to limit myself to these everyday examples, because the Law says the same thing.

⁹We read in the Law of Moses, “Do not muzzle an ox when you are using it to thresh grain.” Now, is God concerned about oxen?

¹⁰Didn't he really mean us when he said that? Of course that was written for us. Anyone who plows and anyone who reaps should do their work in the hope of getting a share of the crop.

¹¹We have sown spiritual seed among you. Is it too much if we reap material benefits from you?

¹²If others have the right to expect this from you, don't we have an even greater right? But we haven't made use of this right. Instead, we have endured everything in order not to put any obstacle in the way of the Good News about Christ.

¹³Surely you know that the men who work in the Temple get their food from the Temple and that those who offer the sacrifices on the altar get a share of the sacrifices.

¹⁴In the same way, the Lord has ordered that those who preach the gospel should get their living from it.

¹⁵But I haven't made use of any of these rights, nor am I writing this now in order to claim such rights for myself. I would rather die first! Nobody is going to turn my rightful boast into empty words!

¹⁶I have no right to boast just because I preach the gospel. After all, I am under orders to do so. And how terrible it would be for me if I did not preach the gospel!

¹⁷If I did my work as a matter of free choice, then I could expect to be paid; but I do it as a matter of duty, because God has entrusted me with this task.

¹⁸What pay do I get, then? It is the privilege of preaching the Good News without charging for it, without claiming my rights in my work for the gospel.

¹⁹I am a free man, nobody's slave; but I make myself everybody's slave in order to win as many people as possible.

²⁰While working with the Jews, I live like a Jew in order to win them; and even though I myself am not subject to the Law of Moses, I live as though I were when working with those who are, in order to win them.

²¹In the same way, when working with Gentiles, I live like a Gentile, outside the Jewish Law, in order to win Gentiles. This does not mean that I don't obey God's law; I am really under Christ's law.

²²Among the weak in faith I become weak like one of them, in order to win them. So I become all things to all people, that I may save some of them by whatever means are possible.

²³All this I do for the gospel's sake, in order to share in its blessings.

²⁴Surely you know that many runners take part in a race, but only one of them wins the prize. Run, then, in such a way as to win the prize.

²⁵Every athlete in training submits to strict discipline, in order to be crowned with a wreath that will not last; but we do it for one that will last forever.

²⁶That is why I run straight for the finish line; that is why I am like a boxer who does not waste his punches.

²⁷I harden my body with blows and bring it under complete control, to keep myself from being disqualified after having called others to the contest.

Warnings against Idols

¹I want you to remember, my friends, what happened to our ancestors who followed Moses. They were all under the protection of the cloud, and all passed safely through the Red Sea.

²In the cloud and in the sea they were all baptized as followers of Moses.

³All ate the same spiritual bread

⁴and drank the same spiritual drink. They drank from the spiritual rock that went with them; and that rock was Christ himself.

⁵But even then God was not pleased with most of them, and so their dead bodies were scattered over the desert.

⁶Now, all of this is an example for us, to warn us not to desire evil things, as they did,

⁷nor to worship idols, as some of them did. As the scripture says, “The people sat down to a feast which turned into an orgy of drinking and sex.”

⁸We must not be guilty of sexual immorality, as some of them were—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them fell dead.

⁹We must not put the Lord to the test, as some of them did—and they were killed by snakes.

¹⁰We must not complain, as some of them did—and they were destroyed by the Angel of Death.

¹¹All these things happened to them as examples for others, and they were written down as a warning for us. For we live at a time when the end is about to come.

¹²If you think you are standing firm you had better be careful that you do not fall.

¹³Every test that you have experienced is the kind that normally comes to people. But God keeps his promise, and he will not allow you to be tested beyond your power to remain firm; at the time you are put to the test, he will give you the strength to endure it, and so provide you with a way out.

¹⁴So then, my dear friends, keep away from the worship of idols.

¹⁵I speak to you as sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say.

¹⁶The cup we use in the Lord's Supper and for which we give thanks to God: when we drink from it, we are sharing in the blood of Christ. And the bread we break: when we eat it, we are sharing in the body of Christ.

¹⁷Because there is the one loaf of bread, all of us, though many, are one body, for we all share the same loaf.

¹⁸Consider the people of Israel; those who eat what is offered in sacrifice share in the altar's service to God.

¹⁹Do I imply, then, that an idol or the food offered to it really amounts to anything?

²⁰No! What I am saying is that what is sacrificed on pagan altars is offered to demons, not to God. And I do not want you to be partners with demons.

²¹You cannot drink from the Lord's cup and also from the cup of demons; you cannot eat at the Lord's table and also at the table of demons.

²²Or do we want to make the Lord jealous? Do we think that we are stronger than he?

²³“We are allowed to do anything,” so they say. That is true, but not everything is good. “We are allowed to do anything”—but not everything is helpful.

²⁴None of you should be looking out for your own interests, but for the interests of others.

²⁵You are free to eat anything sold in the meat market, without asking any questions because of your conscience.

²⁶For, as the scripture says, “The earth and everything in it belong to the Lord.”

²⁷If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you decide to go, eat what is set before you, without asking any questions because of your conscience.

²⁸But if someone tells you, “This food was offered to idols,” then do not eat that food, for the sake of the one who told you and for conscience' sake—

²⁹that is, not your own conscience, but the other person's conscience. “Well, then,” someone asks, “why should my freedom to act be limited by another person's conscience?

³⁰If I thank God for my food, why should anyone criticize me about food for which I give thanks?”

³¹Well, whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, do it all for God's glory.

³²Live in such a way as to cause no trouble either to Jews or Gentiles or to the church of God.

³³Just do as I do; I try to please everyone in all that I do, not thinking of my own good, but of the good of all, so that they might be saved.

⁷Young people who obey the law are intelligent. Those who make friends with good-for-nothings are a disgrace to their parents.

⁸If you get rich by charging interest and taking advantage of people, your wealth will go to someone who is kind to the poor.

⁹If you do not obey the law, God will find your prayers too hateful to hear.