Bible verses about "ministry" | Goodspeed

¹⁸ And Jesus came up to them and said, "Full authority in heaven and on the earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all the heathen, baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teach them to observe all the commands that I have given you. I will always be with you, to the very close of the age."

¹ Jesus returned from the Jordan full of the holy Spirit, and he was led about in the desert ² for forty days by the Spirit, and was tempted by the devil. In all those days he ate nothing, and when they were over he was famished. ³ And the devil said to him, "If you are God's son, tell this stone to turn into bread!" ⁴ Jesus answered, "The Scripture says, 'Not on bread alone is man to live!' " ⁵ And he took him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. ⁶ And the devil said to him, "I will give you all this power and their splendor, for it has been turned over to me, and I can give it to anyone I please. ⁷ If you will do homage before me, it shall all be yours." ⁸ Jesus answered, "The Scripture says, 'You must do homage before the Lord your God, and worship him alone.' " ⁹ And he took him to Jerusalem, and made him stand on the summit of the Temple, and said to him, "If you are God's son, throw yourself down from here, ¹⁰ for the Scripture says, 'He will give his angels orders about you, to protect you,' ¹¹ and, 'They will lift you up with their hands, so that you may never strike your foot against a stone.' " ¹² Jesus answered, "We have been told, 'You shall not try the Lord your God.' "

¹ He went again to a synagogue, and there was a man there with one hand withered. ² And they were watching him closely, to see whether he would cure him on the Sabbath, in order to get a charge to bring against him. ³ He said to the man with the withered hand, "Get up and come forward." ⁴ And he said to them, "Is it allowable to do people good on the Sabbath, or to do them harm? To save life or kill?" But they made no answer. ⁵ And he looked around at them with anger, hurt by their obstinacy, and he said to the man, "Hold out your hand!" And he held it out, and his hand was cured. ⁶ Then the Pharisees left the synagogue and immediately consulted with the Herodians about Jesus, with a view to putting him to death. ⁷ So Jesus retired with his disciples to the seashore, and a great many people from Galilee followed him, and from Judea ⁸ and Jerusalem and Idumea and from the other side of the Jordan and from the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon a great many who had heard of the things he was doing came to him. ⁹ He told his disciples to have a boat always ready for his use, to prevent his being crushed by the crowd. ¹⁰ For he cured so many people that all who had any ailments pressed up to him to touch him. ¹¹ And whenever the foul spirits saw him, they fell down before him and screamed out, "You are the Son of God!" ¹² And he warned them repeatedly not to tell who he was. ¹³ And he went up the hillside and summoned to him those whom he wanted, and they went to him. ¹⁴ He appointed twelve of them, whom he called apostles, to be with him and to be sent out to preach, ¹⁵ with power to drive out the demons. These were the twelve he appointed: ¹⁶ Peter, which was the name he gave to Simon, ¹⁷ James the son of Zebedee, and John, James's brother (he named them Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder), ¹⁸ Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alpheus, Thaddeus, Simon the Zealot, ¹⁹ and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. Then he went home. ²⁰ And again the crowd gathered in such numbers that there was no chance for them even to have their meals. ²¹ His relatives heard of it and came over to stop him, for they said that he was out of his mind. ²² And the scribes who had come down from Jerusalem said that he was possessed by Beelzebub and drove out demons by the help of the prince of demons. ²³ So he called them to him and spoke to them in figures, saying, "How can Satan drive Satan out? ²⁴ If a kingdom is disunited, that kingdom cannot last. ²⁵ And if a household is disunited, that household cannot last. ²⁶ And if Satan has rebelled against himself and become disunited, he cannot last but is coming to his end. ²⁷ But no one can go into a strong man's house and carry off his property unless he first binds the strong man; after that he can plunder his house. ²⁸ I tell you, men will be forgiven for everything, for all their sins and all the abusive things they say. ²⁹ But whoever reviles the holy Spirit can never be forgiven, but is guilty of an unending sin." ³⁰ This was because they said, "He is possessed by a foul spirit." ³¹ And his mother and his brothers came. And they stood outside the house and sent word in to him to come outside to them. ³² There was a crowd sitting around him when they told him, "Your mother and your brothers are outside asking for you." ³³ He answered, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" ³⁴ And looking around at the people sitting about him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! ³⁵ Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."

¹ I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by this mercy of God, to offer your bodies in a living sacrifice that will be holy and acceptable to God; that is your rational worship. ² You must not adopt the customs of this world but by your new attitude of mind be transformed so that you can find out what God's will is—what is good, pleasing, and perfect. ³ By the favor that God has shown me, I would tell every one of you not to think too highly of himself, but to think reasonably, judging himself by the degree of faith God has allowed him. ⁴ For just as there are many parts united in our human bodies, and the parts do not all have the same function, ⁵ so, many as we are, we form one body through union with Christ, and we are individually parts of one another. ⁶ We have gifts that differ with the favor that God has shown us, whether it is that of preaching, differing with the measure of our faith, ⁷ or of practical service, differing in the field of service, or the teacher who exercises his gift in teaching, ⁸ the speaker, in his exhortation, the giver of charity, with generosity, the office-holder, with devotion, the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

¹ So, for my part, brothers, I could not treat you as spiritual persons; I had to treat you just as creatures of flesh and blood, as babies in Christian living. ² I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. Why, you are not ready for it now, ³ for you are still worldly. For when there are still jealousy and quarrels among you, are you not worldly and living on a merely human level? ⁴ For when one man says, "I am a follower of Paul," and another, "I am a follower of Apollos," are you not simply human? ⁵ What is Apollos? Or what is Paul? Just servants through whom you came to have faith, as the Lord gave each of us opportunity. ⁶ I did the planting, Apollos the watering, but it was God who made the plants grow. ⁷ So neither the planter nor the waterer counts for anything, but only God who makes the plants grow. ⁸ The planter and the waterer are all one, though each of us will be paid for his own work. ⁹ For we are fellow-laborers for God, and you are God's farm, God's building. ¹⁰ Like an expert builder, I laid a foundation, as God commissioned me to do, and now someone else is building upon it. But let everyone be careful how he does so. ¹¹ For no one can lay any other foundation than the one that is laid, that is, Jesus Christ himself. ¹² And whether one uses gold or silver or costly stone in building on the foundation, or wood or hay or straw, ¹³ the quality of everyone's work will appear, for the Day will show it. For the Day will break in fire, and the fire will test the quality of everyone's work. ¹⁴ If what a man has built on the foundation stands the test, he will have his pay. ¹⁵ If a man's work is burned up, he must stand the loss, though he himself will be saved, but as one who has passed through the fire. ¹⁶ Do you know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit makes its home in you? ¹⁷ If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is sacred, and that is what you are. ¹⁸ Let no one of you deceive himself. If any one of you imagines that he is wiser than the rest of you, in what this world calls wisdom, he had better become a fool, so as to become really wise. ¹⁹ For this world's wisdom is foolishness to God. For the Scripture says, "He who catches the wise with their own cunning," ²⁰ and "The Lord knows that the deliberations of the wise are fruitless." ²¹ So no one should boast about men. For it all belongs to you— ²² Paul, Apollos, Cephas, the world, life, death, the present, the future—all of it belongs to you. ²³ But you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

¹¹ It is with this knowledge of what the fear of the Lord means that I appeal to men. My true character is perfectly plain to God, and I hope to your consciences too. ¹² I am not trying to recommend myself to you again. I am giving you cause to be proud of me, to use in answering men who pride themselves on external advantages and not on sincerity of heart. ¹³ For if I was out of my senses, as they say, it was between God and me; and if I am in my right mind, it is for your good. ¹⁴ It is Christ's love that controls me, for I have become convinced that as one has died for all, all have died, ¹⁵ and he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again. ¹⁶ So from that time on, I have estimated nobody at what he seemed to be outwardly; even though I once estimated Christ in that way, I no longer do so. ¹⁷ So if anyone is in union with Christ, he is a new being; the old state of things has passed away; there is a new state of things. ¹⁸ All this comes from God, who through Christ has reconciled me to himself, and has commissioned me to proclaim this reconciliation— ¹⁹ how God through Christ reconciled the world to himself, refusing to count men's offenses against them, and intrusted me with the message of reconciliation. ²⁰ It is for Christ, therefore, that I am an envoy, seeing that God makes his appeal through me. On Christ's behalf I beg you to be reconciled to God.

¹ So since by the mercy of God I am engaged in this service, I never lose heart. ² I disown disgraceful, underhanded ways. I refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's message. It is by the open statement of the truth that I would commend myself to every human conscience in the sight of God. ³ If the meaning of my preaching of the good news is veiled at all, it is so only in the case of those who are on the way to destruction. ⁴ In their case, the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep the light of the good news of the glorious Christ, the likeness of God, from dawning upon them. ⁵ For it is not myself but Christ Jesus that I am proclaiming as Lord; I am only a slave of yours for Jesus' sake. ⁶ For God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in my heart, to give me the light of the knowledge of God's glory, that is on the face of Christ. ⁷ But I have this treasure in a mere ear then jar, to show that its amazing power belongs to God and not to me. ⁸ I am hard pressed on every side, but never cut off: perplexed, but not driven to despair; ⁹ routed, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; ¹⁰ never free from the danger of being put to death like Jesus, so that in my body the life of Jesus also may be seen. ¹¹ For every day I live I am being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be visible in my mortal nature. ¹² So it is death that operates in my case, but life that operates in yours. ¹³ In the same spirit of faith as his who said, "I believed, and so I spoke," I too believe, and so I speak, ¹⁴ sure that he who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will raise me also like Jesus, and bring me side by side with you into his presence. ¹⁵ For it is all for your benefit, in order that as God's favor reaches greater and greater numbers, it may result in more and more thanksgiving in praise of God. ¹⁶ So I never lose heart. Though my outer nature is wasting away, my inner is being renewed every day. ¹⁷ For this slight, momentary trouble is piling up for me an eternal blessedness beyond all comparison, ¹⁸ because I keep my eyes not on what is seen but what is unseen. For what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal.

⁶ and he has qualified me to serve him in the interests of a new agreement, not in writing but of spirit. For what is written kills, but the Spirit gives life.

²⁴ But my life does not matter, if I can only finish my race and do the service intrusted to me by the Lord Jesus, of declaring the good news of God's favor.

¹ I charge you in the sight of God and Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom, ² preach the message; be at it in season and out of season; convince, reprove, exhort people, with perfect patience and willingness to teach. ³ For a time will come when they will not listen to wholesome instruction, but will overwhelm themselves with teachers to suit their whims and tickle their fancies, ⁴ and they will turn from listening to the truth and wander off after fictions. ⁵ But you must always be composed; do not shrink from hardship; do your work as a missionary, and your whole duty as a minister.

¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will raise you up

⁷ Do not forget your former leaders, the men who brought you God's message. Remember how they ended their lives and imitate their faith.

³ I put no obstacles in anyone's path, so that no fault may be found with my work. ⁴ On the contrary, as a servant of God I try in every way to commend myself to them, through my great endurance in troubles, difficulties, hardships, ⁵ beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, and hunger, ⁶ through my purity of life, my knowledge, my patience, my kindness, my holiness of spirit, my genuine love, ⁷ the truth of my teaching, and the power of God; with the weapons of uprightness for the right hand and the left, ⁸ in honor or dishonor, in praise or blame; considered an imposter, when I am true, ⁹ obscure, when I am well known, at the point of death, yet here I am alive, punished, but not dead yet, ¹⁰ pained, when I am always glad, poor, when I make many others rich, penniless, when really I own everything.

¹⁵ Do your best to win God's approval as a workman who has nothing to be ashamed of, but rightly shapes the message of truth.

¹² Let no one look down on you because you are young, but set those who believe an example in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity.

¹³ For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. ¹⁴ But how are they to call upon him if they have not believed in him? And how are they to believe him if they have never heard him? And how are they to hear unless someone preaches to them? ¹⁵ And how are men to preach unless they are sent to do it? As the Scripture says, "How welcome is the coming of those who bring good news!"

¹¹ And he has given us some men as apostles, some as prophets, some as missionaries, some as pastors and teachers, ¹² in order to fit his people for the work of service, for building the body of Christ, ¹³ until we all attain unity in faith, and in the knowledge of the Son of God, and reach mature manhood, and that full measure of development found in Christ.