Because the Good News that we brought came home to you, not merely as so many words, but with a power and a fulness of conviction due to the Holy Spirit. For you know the life that we lived among you for your good.

as is taught in the glorious Good News of the ever-blessed God, with which I was entrusted.

It is

Men whose minds have been blinded by the God of this Age, unbelievers as they are, so that the light from the Good News of the glory of the Christ, who is the very incarnation of God, should not shine for them.

For we are the fragrance of Christ ascending to God--both among those who are in the path of Salvation and among those who are in the path to Ruin.

But their minds were slow to learn. Indeed, to this very day, at the public reading of the Old Covenant, the same veil remains unlifted; only for those who are in union with Christ does it pass away.

At that same time Jesus uttered the words: "I thank thee, Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, that, though thou has hidden these things from the wise and learned, thou hast revealed them to the child-like!

The Message of the Cross is indeed mere folly to those who are in the path to Ruin, but to us who are in the path of Salvation it is the very power of God.

For at the Coming of the Lord there will be great activity on the part of Satan, in the form of all kinds of deceptive miracles, signs, and marvels, as well as of wicked attempts to delude--

General references

That is why I speak to them in parables, because, though they have eyes, they do not see, and though they have ears, they do not hear or understand.

They did not understand that he meant the Father.

Dear friend, whatever you do for our Brothers is done in a Christian spirit--even when they are strangers to you.