Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you! For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.
Comment: Collecting together the pieces above in italics we read about the common people in the church. ‘Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings!,,,you are wise in Christ….And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you!‘ It sounds as if the church is perfect and everything is ‘tick-it-ee-boo’/perfect with them. I guess we may think again as we follow along with the letter. The other portions show what it was like to be an itinerant spreader of the gospel, scorned and laughed at, a nobody as far as the world was concerned – in a word ‘fools’!
Prayer: In spite of how people criticize me, keep me faithful to You, my God.
As I read it! 
Thank you Barry for your comments on this passage. I believe you nit the nail on the head. I would not have seen it, so thank you for your help. God bless you.
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Thank you Marion. We have just been watching a series on the 7 churches of Revelation and it is sad to see how quickly we Christians give up our concentration on God and godliness. May He keep you and Me, recognized oldies faithful to the end – or is it really the beginning!
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