but it is in vain they worship Me, while they lay down precepts which are mere human rules.'"

"Blessed are you, Simon Bar-jonah," said Jesus; "for mere human nature has not revealed this to you, but my Father in Heaven.

But idle is their devotion while they lay down precepts which are mere human rules.'

Consider therefore whether the light that is in you is anything but mere darkness.

"No mere man has ever spoken as this man speaks," said the officers.

It was not as a mere man that he thus spoke. But being High Priest that year he was inspired to declare that Jesus was to die for the nation,

Nay, but who are you, a mere man, that you should cavil against GOD? Shall the thing moulded say to him who moulded it, "Why have you made me thus?"

I now pass to another subject. Receive as a friend a man whose faith is weak, but not for the purpose of deciding mere matters of opinion.

And as for myself, brethren, I found it impossible to speak to you as spiritual men. It had to be as to worldlings--mere babes in Christ.

you are still unspiritual. For so long as jealousy and strife continue among you, can it be denied that you are unspiritual and are living and acting like mere men of the world?

We, for Christ's sake, are labeled as "foolish"; you, as Christians, are men of shrewd intelligence. We are mere weaklings: you are strong. You are in high repute: we are outcasts.

when slandered, we try to conciliate. We have come to be regarded as the mere dirt and filth of the world--the refuse of the universe, even to this hour.

I use the language of self-disparagement, as though I were admitting our own feebleness. Yet for whatever reason any one is 'courageous' --I speak in mere folly--I also am courageous.

You are therefore no longer mere foreigners or persons excluded from civil rights. On the contrary you share citizenship with God's people and are members of His family.

For ours is not a conflict with mere flesh and blood, but with the despotisms, the empires, the forces that control and govern this dark world--the spiritual hosts of evil arrayed against us in the heavenly warfare.

Nay, I even reckon all things as pure loss because of the priceless privilege of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. And for His sake I have suffered the loss of everything, and reckon it all as mere refuse, in order that I may win Christ and be found in union with Him,

referring to things which are all intended to be used up and perish--in obedience to mere human injunctions and teachings?

nor did we seek glory either from you or from any other mere men, although we might have stood on our dignity as Christ's Apostles.

And for this further reason we render unceasing thanks to God, that when you received God's Message from our lips, it was as no mere message from men that you embraced it, but as--what it really is--God's Message, which also does its work in the hearts of you who believe.

For we hear that there are some of you who live disorderly lives and are mere idle busybodies.

and the attention they bestow on mere fables and endless pedigrees, such as lead to controversy rather than to a true stewardship for God, which only exists where there is faith. And I make the same request now.

Bring all this to men's remembrances, solemnly charging them in the presence of God not to waste time in wrangling about mere words, a course which is altogether unprofitable and tends only to the ruin of the hearers.

Such persons are mere babes. But solid food is for adults--that is, for those who through constant practice have their spiritual faculties carefully trained to distinguish good from evil.

For not into a Holy place built by men's hands--a mere copy of the reality--did Christ enter, but He entered Heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.

But prove yourselves obedient to the Message, and do not be mere hearers of it, imposing a delusion upon yourselves.

In the same way the tongue is an insignificant part of the body, but it is immensely boastful. Remember how a mere spark may set a vast forest in flames.

But, as the case stands, it is in mere self-confidence that you boast: all such boasting is evil.