1 Corinthians 4:15
For although you have ten thousand guardians [Note: This word means someone who transported a child to his teacher] in [the fellowship of] Christ, you do not have many [spiritual] fathers. For I [spiritually] conceived you people through [preaching to you] the good news [about Christ]. [Note: Paul here refers to his work in establishing the church at Corinth].
Galatians 4:19
My little children [i.e., dear ones], I am again deeply pained [as a woman in childbirth] over your [spiritual] condition, until [the life of] Christ becomes formed in your character.
1 Corinthians 3:10
Using the unearned favor shown to me by God [Note: Paul here probably refers to his apostleship and its attending spiritual gifts], as an expert building contractor, I laid the foundation [i.e., in starting the Corinthian church], and someone else is building on it [i.e., Apollos. See verse 6].
Acts 18:4-11
Every Sabbath day Paul held discussions in the synagogues, trying to convince [both] Jews and Greeks [i.e., Gentiles, that Jesus was the Messiah].
Romans 15:20
Now it has been my ambition to preach the good news at places where Christ's name has never been heard, so that I would not be building on someone else's foundation.
1 Corinthians 3:6
I [Paul] planted [i.e., preached God's word], Apollos watered [it], but God made it grow.
1 Corinthians 9:1-2
Am I not a free man? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? [See Acts 9:17; I Cor. 15:8]. Are you people not [the result of] my work in [the service of] the Lord?
1 Corinthians 9:12
If other people have the right to receive a share of what you have, should we not have even more [right to it]? Yet we did not make use of this right, but instead we put up with whatever we had to so we would not become a hindrance to [the spread of] the good news [about Christ].
1 Corinthians 9:14
Even so the Lord directed that those who proclaim the good news [about Christ] should get their living from [preaching] that good news.
1 Corinthians 9:18
Then what is my reward? It is being able to preach the good news without receiving financial support [for it], so as not to claim my full rights in [the work of preaching] the good news.
1 Corinthians 9:23
And everything I do is for the sake of [the work of] the Gospel, so that I may share in its benefits.
2 Corinthians 3:1-3
Are we beginning to commend ourselves again [i.e., by saying that we are not like other people]? Or, do we need letters of recommendation to you or from you, as others do?
2 Timothy 4:3
For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound teaching, but will assemble to themselves teachers who will satisfy what their "itching ears" want to hear.
Titus 1:4
[It is being sent] to Titus, my true son, [who shares] in a common faith. [May you have] unearned favor and peace [which come] from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.
James 1:18
It was God's purpose to bring us into being [spiritually] by the message of truth, so that we could become a kind of "firstfruits" of those He created. [Note: "Firstfruits" here suggests either that Christians are the best of all of God's creatures (Num. 18:12), or that they were the first to be converted, with many more to come].
1 Peter 1:23
You have experienced new birth, not from seed that can decay, but from seed that cannot decay, through the living and enduring word of God.