It is like a man away on a journey: When he leaves his house and gives authority to his servants, assigning to each one his task, he also commands the doorkeeper to keep watch.
Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked through them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it. Amen.
Now those who had been scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews.
So keep watch over yourselves and over the entire flock. The Holy Spirit has appointed you as their overseers, to shepherd the church of our Lord and God, which he obtained with his own blood.
And those whom God has appointed in the church are as follows: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, next miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, leading, and various kinds of tongues.
But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.
But for now I thought it necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus—my brother, fellow worker, and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger and minister to my need.
Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ, greets you, always striving for you in his prayers, so that you may stand mature and complete in all the will of God.
For you remember, brothers, our labor and hardship. Working night and day so as not to be a burden on any of you, we preached to you the gospel of God.
For this is why we labor and suffer reproach, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe.
But Christ is faithful over God's house as a Son. And we are his house if indeed we hold our confidence firm to the end along with the hope in which we boast.
“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and who walks among the seven golden lampstands: