Who 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?

For 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.

The sin of the Jews brought rich blessings to the world, and their spiritual poverty brought rich blessings to the Gentiles. Then, how much greater the blessings will be when the complete number of Jews is included!

He will always make you rich enough to be generous at all times, so that many will thank God for your gifts which they receive from us.

He did this to demonstrate for all time to come the extraordinary greatness of his grace in the love he showed us in Christ Jesus.

I am less than the least of all God's people; yet God gave me this privilege of taking to the Gentiles the Good News about the infinite riches of Christ,

The Spirit gives one person a message full of wisdom, while to another person the same Spirit gives a message full of knowledge.

The Spirit gives one person the power to work miracles; to another, the gift of speaking God's message; and to yet another, the ability to tell the difference between gifts that come from the Spirit and those that do not. To one person he gives the ability to speak in strange tongues, and to another he gives the ability to explain what is said.

I would like for all of you to speak in strange tongues; but I would rather that you had the gift of proclaiming God's message. For the person who proclaims God's message is of greater value than the one who speaks in strange tongues---unless there is someone present who can explain what is said, so that the whole church may be helped.

So when I come to you, my friends, what use will I be to you if I speak in strange tongues? Not a bit, unless I bring you some revelation from God or some knowledge or some inspired message or some teaching.

This is what I mean, my friends. When you meet for worship, one person has a hymn, another a teaching, another a revelation from God, another a message in strange tongues, and still another the explanation of what is said. Everything must be of help to the church.

They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to talk in other languages, as the Spirit enabled them to speak.

You are so rich in all you have: in faith, speech, and knowledge, in your eagerness to help and in your love for us. And so we want you to be generous also in this service of love.

And pray also for me, that God will give me a message when I am ready to speak, so that I may speak boldly and make known the gospel's secret.

At the same time pray also for us, so that God will give us a good opportunity to preach his message about the secret of Christ. For that is why I am now in prison.

Pray, then, that I may speak, as I should, in such a way as to make it clear.

And so this weak person, your brother for whom Christ died, will perish because of your "knowledge"!

I may have the gift of inspired preaching; I may have all knowledge and understand all secrets; I may have all the faith needed to move mountains---but if I have no love, I am nothing.

Love is eternal. There are inspired messages, but they are temporary; there are gifts of speaking in strange tongues, but they will cease; there is knowledge, but it will pass.

Everything written in the Scriptures was written to teach us, in order that we might have hope through the patience and encouragement which the Scriptures give us.

The God who said, "Out of darkness the light shall shine!" is the same God who made his light shine in our hearts, to bring us the knowledge of God's glory shining in the face of Christ.

and ask the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, to give you the Spirit, who will make you wise and reveal God to you, so that you will know him.

I pray that your love will keep on growing more and more, together with true knowledge and perfect judgment,

For this reason we have always prayed for you, ever since we heard about you. We ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will, with all the wisdom and understanding that his Spirit gives.

Then you will be able to live as the Lord wants and will always do what pleases him. Your lives will produce all kinds of good deeds, and you will grow in your knowledge of God.

He is the key that opens all the hidden treasures of God's wisdom and knowledge.

and have put on the new self. This is the new being which God, its Creator, is constantly renewing in his own image, in order to bring you to a full knowledge of himself.

Are there any of you who are wise and understanding? You are to prove it by your good life, by your good deeds performed with humility and wisdom.

But continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory, now and forever! Amen.