He who is greatest among you must be your servant.
Why, free as I am from all, I have made myself the slave of all, to win over as many as I could.
Brothers, you were called to be free; only, do not make your freedom an opening for the flesh, but serve one another in love.
(It is Christ Jesus as Lord, not myself, that I proclaim; I am simply a servant of yours for Jesus' sake.)
Ministers of Christ? yes perhaps, but not as much as I am (I am mad to talk like this! ), with all my labours, with all my lashes, with all my time in prison — a record longer far than theirs. I have been often at the point of death;
nor must you be called 'leaders,' for One is your leader, even the Christ.
So he sat down and called the twelve. "If anyone wants to be first," he said to them, "he must be last of all and the servant of all."