Journey Through God's Word

¹If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy,

²make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

³Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.

⁴Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.

⁵Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

⁶who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,

⁷but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form,

⁸he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross.

⁹Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name,

¹⁰so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

¹¹and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

¹²Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;

¹³for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

¹⁴Do all things without murmuring and arguing,

¹⁵so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world.

¹⁶It is by your holding fast to the word of life that I can boast on the day of Christ that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.

¹⁷But even if I am being poured out as a libation over the sacrifice and the offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you —

¹⁸and in the same way you also must be glad and rejoice with me.

¹Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed.

²You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak.

³Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says “Let Jesus be cursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.

⁴Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;

⁵and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord;

⁶and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.

⁷To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

⁸To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit,

⁹to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,

¹⁰to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.

¹¹All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

¹²For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.

¹³For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

¹⁴Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many.

¹⁵If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.

¹⁶And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.

¹⁷If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?

¹⁸But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.

¹⁹If all were a single member, where would the body be?

²⁰As it is, there are many members, yet one body.

²¹The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”

²²On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable,

²³and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect;

²⁴whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member,

²⁵that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another.

²⁶If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.

²⁷Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

²⁸And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues.

²⁹Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles?

³⁰Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?

³¹But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.

¹If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

²And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

³If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant

⁵or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;

⁶it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.

⁷It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.

⁹For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part;

¹⁰but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.

¹¹When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.

¹²For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

¹³And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.