First Letter from Small Man to the Sacred Family in Village of Pleasure 3
3
MILK FOR SPIRITUAL INFANTS
1My sacred family members, the first time I came to you I could not speak to you as I would to the spiritually mature. Instead, I had to speak to you as I would to the unspiritual, as infants in the Chosen One. 2I had to feed you with milk, since you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are not ready. 3As long as there is jealousy and fighting among you, are you not unspiritual and walking like weak and broken human beings?
4When one of you says, “I follow Small Man (Paul),” and another says, “I follow He Tears Down (Apollos),” does this not prove you are walking like weak and broken human beings? 5Who is He Tears Down (Apollos)? Who is Small Man (Paul)? Only servants who with the help of our Honored Chief led you down the path of trusting. 6I planted the seed, and He Tears Down (Apollos) watered it, but it was the Great Spirit who made it grow.
7So it does not matter who plants or who waters. What matters is the one who makes the plants grow. 8The one who plants and the one who waters both share the same purpose, and each will be honored according to how well they have served. 9For we are working side by side with the help of the Great Spirit. You are Creator’s garden where he grows good fruit, and you are the sacred lodge where he has chosen to live.
BUILDING THE SACRED LODGE
10In his great kindness Creator gave me the wisdom of a skilled lodge builder. I set the stone in place for the lodge to rest on, and others are building on what I laid down. But each person must take care to see how the lodge is to be built. 11For this lodge cannot be built on just any stone, but only on the stone that has already been set in place. That stone is Creator Sets Free (Jesus), the Chosen One.
12-13Each builder must use the right building materials, for a day is coming when the quality of each one’s work will be tested by fire. Then it will be clearly shown whether the builder has used gold, silver, and costly stones, or wood, dried grass, and corn stalks. 14If what has been built survives the fire, then the builder will be honored. 15If what has been built is burned up, then the builder will have no honor and will lose all that was done. The builder’s life will be spared, but as one who has escaped through the fire.
TRUE AND FALSE WISDOM
16Do you not know that Creator’s Spirit lives in all of you, making you his sacred lodge? 17Creator will bring ruin to anyone who ruins his lodge, for Creator’s lodge is holy, and you are his sacred lodge. 18Do not trick yourself. All who think they are wise in the ways of this present world need to become foolish, so that they may become wise in Creator’s ways. 19For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of the Great Spirit.
Our Sacred Teachings tell us, “He is many steps ahead of the wise who think they can trick him.”#3:19 Job 5:13 20They also say, “Human beings may think they are wise, but Creator can see how weak and empty their thoughts truly are.”#3:20 Psalm 94:11
21So you can stop bragging about human teachers! 22Men such as Small Man (Paul) or He Tears Down (Apollos) or Stands on the Rock (Cephas) are all yours in the Chosen One. All things are already yours—whether it is this world, or life, or death, or today and all the days that will follow. 23For you are of the Chosen One, and the Chosen One is of the Great Spirit.
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