Have you no houses in which you can eat and drink? Or are you trying to show your contempt for the Church of God, and to humiliate the poor? What can I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this matter I cannot praise you.
And by means of which you are being saved. I would remind you of the very words that I used in telling it to you, since you are still holding fast to it, and since it was not in vain that you became believers in Christ.
This is my reason for sending Timothy to you. He is my own dear faithful child in the Master's service, and he will remind you of my methods of teaching the Faith of Christ Jesus-methods which I follow everywhere in every Church.
In any case, a man should continue to live in the condition which the Lord has allotted to him, and in which he was when God called him. This is the rule that I lay down in every Church.
And you yourselves began to follow, not only our example, but the Master's also; and, in spite of much suffering, you welcomed the Message with a joy inspired by the Holy Spirit,
But, when Timothy recently returned to us from you with good news of your faith and love, and told us how kindly you think of us--always longing, he said, to see us, just as we are longing to see you--
We urge you, Brothers, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, to avoid any Brother who is living an ill-ordered life, which is not in agreement with the teaching that you received from us.