1 Corinthians 4:9

Plain English Version

No, I reckon it is like this. Even though we are Jesus’s special workers, God lets us look weak. You know how soldiers take prisoners out to kill them in a place where everybody can watch them die. Well, I reckon it is like that with us. God lets us look weak, like those prisoners, so that everyone on the earth, and in heaven too, can look at us.

Cross References

Acts 19:29

A lot of the other people in the town heard them shouting, and they went and joined those men and started shouting too. They got angry with Paul, and they grabbed the 2 men from Macedonia that used to go around with Paul. Their names were Guyus and Aristarkus. They dragged those 2 men to the sports oval of that town.

Acts 19:31

There were some government officials of that country that were friends with Paul. They heard that those people went wild, so they sent him a message to tell him strongly, “Don’t go to that sports oval. That mob are too wild. They might kill you.”

Romans 8:36

It is like God says in his book, “Some people find out that we belong to God, and they kill us. They reckon we are weak like sheep and they can kill us whenever they want to.”

1 Corinthians 15:19

You reckon that we can only be sure that Jesus Christ will look after us here in this life. But we Christians get trouble in this life, and other people in the world are more happy than us. So if God will not make us alive again after we die, they can feel sorry for us. But that is not true.

1 Thessalonians 3:3

We knew that people would give you trouble, and we didn’t want any of you to stop following Jesus. You yourselves know that you get trouble for following Jesus.