I know that my sickness was hard on you. But you weren’t mean to me, and you didn’t make fun of me. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God—as if I were Christ Jesus himself.
We also thank God constantly for the way you received his word when you heard it from us. You didn’t accept it as a human word, but for what it is, the word of God. And that word is truly at work in you who believe.
If anyone refuses to accept this teaching, they’re not rejecting a human being. They’re rejecting God, the very same God who gives you his Holy Spirit.
God chose the things of this world that are common, and which are looked down on as if they were nothing, in order to discredit the things that are considered significant.
“Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever does not accept you does not accept me. But whoever does not accept me does not accept the one who sent me.”