My brothers and sisters, you were called to be free. But don’t use your freedom as an excuse to live under the power of sin. Instead, serve one another humbly in love.
These teachers will be so greedy that they’ll make up stories to take advantage of you. But they’ve been under a sentence of death for a long time. Their destruction has not been sleeping.
Those people need to be stopped. They’re disrupting entire families by teaching things they shouldn’t, and they’re doing it just to try to cheat people.
So I put up with everything for the good of God’s chosen people, so that they also can be saved through Christ Jesus, with glory that will last forever.
So I want you to know that anyone who’s speaking with the help of God’s Spirit never says, “May Jesus be cursed.” And without the help of the Holy Spirit, no one can say, “Jesus is Lord.”
But for us there is only one God, the Father. All things came from him, and we live for him. And there is only one Lord, Jesus Christ. All things came through him and we live through him.
God has lifted Jesus up and given him a place of honor at his right hand, making him Prince and Savior so he can turn Israel away from their sins and forgive them.
Whoever speaks on their own does it to get personal glory, but anyone who works for the glory of the one who sent him can be trusted. There’s nothing dishonest about him.
“I’m baptizing you with water so you can show that you’ve turned away from your sins. But someone is coming after me who’s more powerful than I am. I’m not even worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
Follow my example. I try to please everyone in every way. I’m not looking out for what’s good for me. I’m looking out for the interests of others, so that they might be saved.
Other people might be your guardians in Christ, but even if there were 10,000 of them, you still wouldn’t have many fathers. I became your father in Christ Jesus by telling you the good news.