<p>1:21 <i>Now he that establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God- </i>As noted on :20, the confirmation of God's promises through Christ's death are part of His stabilizing of us. Paul would not have lied to them about his travel plans because he has been established or confirmed, just as they had been (&quot;with you&quot;). This confirming or establishment is paralleled to having been anointed by the Spirit. The language of very special people in Jewish history- prophets and kings- is used of each believer. For no longer are just a few significant individuals anointed. Now, every believer is likewise significant and is similarly anointed; see on Acts 13:9. The Greek translated &quot;establishes&quot; has been used by Paul in 1 Cor. 1:6,8, where he reminds the Corinthians that they have been 'confirmed' by the gift of the Spirit after their initial believing into Christ. Yet they were not spiritual (1 Cor. 3:1); they had not made use of that Spirit gift, just as many fail to today. The same word is used of the psychological confirmation of believers after their baptism and belief in Christ (Col. 2:7; Heb. 2:3). Heb. 13:9 is more specific, saying that the heart or mind / psychology is &quot;established with grace&quot;, <i>charis</i>, the gift- of the Spirit. This is how I understand 2 Pet. 1:19- the word of prophecy, the word spoken forth by the early preachers, is confirmed / established AV &quot;made more sure&quot;. Now in 1 Cor. 1:22, Paul will go on to state specifically that the arena of the Spirit's establishing / confirming operation is within the hearts / minds of believers. The same word is found in Mk. 16:20, where the Lord promised to confirm or establish the believer in the Gospel by miracles. This function of the Spirit has passed away, but the essential confirmation of the Gospel by the Spirit gift in human hearts remains.</p><p>But the Greek for 'establish' can also mean to validate, and this was a relevant concern of Paul at this time. This same word keeps cropping up in Ignatius, who uses the Greek <i>bebaion </i>in the sense of &lsquo;valid&rsquo;. Ignatius and others taught that for service of the Lord to be valid by a believer, it had to be validated through obedience to the church leadership. <i>They</i> gave his or her service its validity. &ldquo;Whatsoever the Bishop and presbytery shall approve, this is well-pleasing also to God; that everything which ye do may be sure and valid <i>bebaion</i>&rdquo; (<i>Smyrneans</i> 8.2). Significantly, Paul here addresses this very issue, using the very same Greek word, and in precisely this context- of justifying his service to God even though it was not approved / validated by others who thought they were elders: &ldquo;He who validates us <i>bebaion</i>, along with you the ordinary members of the flock&hellip; is God, who also sealed us&rdquo; (2 Cor. 1:21,22). God has validated and called each of us to His service. We don&rsquo;t need approval / validation / authorization from anybody on this earth. Of course we should seek to work co-operatively with our brethren, for such is obviously the spirit of Christ; neither Paul nor myself are inciting a spirit of maverick irresponsibility. But he <i>is</i> clearly saying that the idea of needing authorization / validation from any group of elders in order to minister, preach, break bread and baptize which is a context of his writing to the Corinthians is totally wrong. &nbsp;</p>