Every time I pray, I always remember you. God knows this is true. He is the one I serve with all my heart by telling people the Good News about his Son. I pray that I will be allowed to come to you. It will happen if God wants it.
I tell you this, and I ask God to be my witness that this is true: The reason I did not come back to Corinth was that I did not want to punish or hurt you.
And I was chosen as an apostle to tell people that message. (I am telling the truth. I am not lying.) I was chosen to teach those who are not Jews to believe and understand the truth.
You know that we never tried to influence you by saying nice things about you. We were not trying to get your money. We had no greed to hide from you. God knows that this is true.
Do you think that we have been defending ourselves to you all this time? No, we say these things in Christ and before God. You are our dear friends, and everything we do is to make you stronger.
And I will continue doing what I am doing now, because I want to stop those people from having a reason to boast. They would like to say that the work they boast about is the same as ours.
We limit our boasting to the work that is ours. We don’t boast about the work other people have done. We hope that your faith will continue to grow. We hope that you will help our work to grow much larger.
I know that you want to help. I have been bragging about you to the people in Macedonia. I told them that you people in Achaia have been ready to give since last year. And your desire to give has made most of the people here ready to give also.
Greetings from Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus. I am an apostle because that is what God wanted. Greetings also from Timothy our brother in Christ. To God’s church in Corinth and to all of God’s holy people throughout Achaia.
You know that Stephanas and his family were the first believers in Achaia. They have given themselves to the service of God’s people. I ask you, brothers and sisters,
Also, give greetings to the church that meets in their house. Give greetings to my dear friend Epaenetus. He was the first person to follow Christ in Asia.
Apollos wanted to go to Achaia. So the believers in Ephesus helped him. They wrote a letter to the Lord’s followers in Achaia and asked them to accept Apollos. When he arrived there, he was a great help to those who had believed in Jesus because of God’s grace.
So I am not the one living now—it is Christ living in me. I still live in my body, but I live by faith in the Son of God. He is the one who loved me and gave himself to save me.