the law of the Spirit brings the life which is in Christ Jesus, and that law has set me free from the law of sin and death.

and though the children were still unborn and had done nothing either good or bad (to confirm the divine purpose in election which depends upon the call of God, not on anything man does),

No, what it does say is this: ??The word is close to you, in your very mouth and in your heart (that is, the word of faith which we preach).

For if you have been cut from an olive which is naturally wild, and grafted, contrary to nature, upon a garden olive, how much more will the natural branches be grafted into their proper olive?

So far as the gospel goes, they are enemies of God ??which is to your advantage; but so far as election goes, they are beloved for their father's sake.

In virtue of my office, I tell everyone of your number who is self-important, that he is not to think more of himself than he ought to think; he must take a sane view of himself, corresponding to the degree of faith which God has assigned to each.

For Macedonia and Achaia have decided to make a contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem.

Brothers, I beg of you to keep your eye on those who stir up dissensions and put hindrances in your way, contrary to the doctrine which you have been taught. Avoid them.

[Now to Him who can strengthen you by my gospel, by the preaching of Jesus Christ, by revealing the secret purpose which after the silence of long ages

all of which verifies the testimony we bore to Christ when we were with you.

God has chosen what is mean and despised in the world ??things which are not, to put down things that are;

it is the mysterious Wisdom of God that we discuss, that hidden wisdom which God decreed from all eternity for our glory.

You Corinthians have your heart's desire already, have you? You have heaven's rich bliss already! You have come into your kingdom without us! I wish indeed you had come into your kingdom, so that we could share it with you!

To ensure this, I am sending you Timotheus, my beloved and trustworthy son in the Lord; he will remind you of those methods in Christ Jesus which I teach everywhere in every church.

Which is it to be? Am I to come to you with a rod of discipline or with love and a spirit of gentleness?

Only, everyone must lead the lot assigned him by the Lord; he must go on living the life in which God's call came to him. (Such is the rule I lay down for all the churches).

But remember, it is not everyone who has this 'knowledge.' Some who have hitherto been accustomed to idols eat the food as food which has been really offered to an idol, and so their weaker conscience is contaminated.

and all drank the same supernatural drink (drinking from the supernatural Rock which accompanied them ??and that Rock was Christ),

The cup of blessing, which we bless, is that not participating in the blood of Christ? The bread we break, is that not participating in the body of Christ?

Quite the contrary. We cannot do without those very members of the body which are considered rather delicate,

which does not need to be paid to our more decorous parts. Yes, God has tempered the body together, with a special dignity for the inferior parts,

Now, brothers, I would have you know the gospel I once preached to you, the gospel you received, the gospel in which you have your footing,

the gospel by which you are saved ??provided you adhere to my statement of it ??unless indeed your faith was all haphazard.

Watch, stand firm in the faith, play the man, be strong!

I ask this favour of you, my brothers. The household of Stephanas, you know, was the first to be reaped in Achaia, and they have laid themselves out to serve the saints.

PAUL an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and brother Timotheus, to the church of God at Corinth as well as to all the saints throughout the whole of Achaia:

who comforts me in all my distress, so that I am able to comfort people who are in any distress by the comfort with which I myself am comforted by God.

If I am in distress, it is in the interests of your comfort and salvation; if I am comforted, it is in the interests of your comfort, which is effective as it nerves you to endure the same sufferings as I suffer myself.

Now I would like you to know about the distress which befell me in Asia, brothers. I was crushed, crushed far more than I could stand, so much so that I despaired even of life;

Let me have your cooperation in prayer, so that many a soul may render thanks to him on my behalf for the boon which many have been the means of him bestowing on myself.

you make it obvious that you are a letter of Christ which I have been employed to inscribe, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of the human heart.

Now if the administration of death which was engraved in letters of stone, was invested with glory ??so much so, that the children of Israel could not gaze at the face of Moses on account of the dazzling glory that was fading from his face;

I disown those practices which very shame conceals from view; I do not go about it craftily; I do not falsify the word of God; I state the truth openly and so commend myself to every man's conscience before God.

This is not 'recommending myself to you again'; it is giving you an incentive to be proud of me, which you can use against men who are proud of externals instead of the inward reality.

Yes, and by more than his arrival, by the comfort which you had been to him; for he gave me such a report of how you longed for me, how sorry you were, and how eagerly you took my part, that it added to my delight.

I know how willing you are, I am proud of it, I have boasted of you to the Macedonians: "Achaia," I tell them, "was all ready last year." And your zeal has been a stimulus to the majority of them.

in case any Macedonians accompany me and find you are not ready ??which would make me (not to speak of yourselves) ashamed of having been so sure.

He who furnishes the sower with seed and with bread to eat will supply seed for you and multiply it; he will increase the crop of your charities ??11 you will be enriched on all hands, so that you can be generous on all occasions, and your generosity, of which I am the agent, will make men give thanks to God;

This service shows what you are, it makes men praise God for the way you have come under the gospel of Christ which you confess, and for the generosity of your contributions to themselves and to all;

they are drawn to you and pray for you, on account of the surpassing grace which God has shown to you.

I wish you would put up with a little 'folly' from me. Do put up with me,

By the truth of Christ within me, I am going to make this my pride and boast unchecked throughout the regions of Achaia!

No, I intend to go on as I am doing, in order to checkmate those who would fain make out that in the apostolate of which they boast they work on the same terms as I do.

I simply know that in the body or out of the body (God knows which)

this man was caught up to paradise and heard sacred secrets which no human lips can repeat.

For I am afraid I may perhaps come and find you are not what I could wish, while you may find I am not what you could wish; I am afraid of finding quarrels, jealousy, temper, rivalry, slanders, gossiping, arrogance, and disorder ??21 afraid that when I come back to you, my God may humiliate me before you, and I may have to mourn for many who sinned some time ago and yet have never repented of the impurity, the sexual vice, and the sensuality which they have practised.

which made them praise God for me.

Now the Promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring; it is not said, 'and to your offsprings' in the plural, but in the singular and to your offspring ??which is Christ.

My point is this: the Law which arose four hundred and thirty years later does not repeal a will previously ratified by God, so as to cancel the Promise.

Then the Law is contrary to God's Promises? Never! Had there been any law which had the power of producing life, righteousness would really have been due to law,

with the freedom for which Christ set us free. Make a firm stand then, do not slip into any yoke of servitude.

But no boasting for me, none except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I crucified to the world.

which is the pledge and instalment of our common heritage, that we may obtain our divine possession and so redound to the praise of his glory.

illuminating the eyes of your heart so that you can understand the hope to which He calls us, the wealth of his glorious heritage in the saints,

and the surpassing greatness of his power over us believers ??a power which operates with the strength of the might

which he exerted in raising Christ from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavenly sphere,

the church which is his Body, filled by him who fills the universe entirely.

in which you moved as you followed the course of this world, under the sway of the prince of the air ??the spirit which is at present active within those sons of disobedience

God has made us what we are, creating us in Christ Jesus for the good deeds which are prepared beforehand by God as our sphere of action.

Remember, then, that once upon a time you Gentiles in the flesh, who are called 'the Uncircumcision' by that so-called 'Circumcision' which is itself the product of human hands in the flesh ??12 remember you were in those days outside Christ, aliens to the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the Promise, devoid of hope and God within the world.

For he is our peace, he who has made both of us a unity and destroyed the barrier which kept us apart;

For this reason I Paul, I whom Jesus has made a prisoner for the sake of you Gentiles ??2 for surely you have heard how the grace of God which was vouchsafed me in your interests has ordered it,

which was not disclosed to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his sacred apostles and prophets by the Spirit),

Such is the gospel which I was called to serve by the endowment of God's grace which was vouchsafed me, by the energy of his power;

and enlighten all men upon the new order of that divine secret which God the Creator of all concealed from eternity ??10 intending to let the full sweep of the divine wisdom be disclosed now by the church to the angelic Rulers and Authorities in the heavenly sphere,

in terms of the eternal purpose which he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord,

by knowing the love of Christ which surpasses all knowledge! May you be filled with the entire fulness of God!

till we should all attain the unity of the faith and knowledge of God's Son, reaching maturity, reaching the full measure of development which belongs to the fulness of Christ ??14 instead of remaining immature, blown from our course and swayed by every passing wind of doctrine, by the adroitness of men who are dexterous in devising error;

as the entire Body is welded together and compacted by every joint with which it is supplied, the due activity of each part enables the Body to grow and build itself up in love.

their intelligence is darkened, they are estranged from the life of God by the ignorance which their dulness of heart has produced in them ??19 men who have recklessly abandoned themselves to sensuality, with a lust for the business of impurity in every shape and form.

you must lay aside the old nature which belonged to your former course of life, that nature which crumbles to ruin under the passions of moral deceit,

putting on the new nature, that divine pattern which has been created in the upright and pious character of the Truth.

for the sake of which I am in custody as its envoy. Pray that I may have freedom to declare it as I should.

your life covered with that harvest of righteousness which Jesus Christ produces to the glory and the praise of God.

But then, if it is to be life here below, that means fruitful work for me. So ??well, I cannot tell which to choose;

due to the hope which is laid up for you in heaven. You heard of this hope originally in the message of the Truth, in that gospel

which has reached you as it spreads over all the world with fruit and increase. Such has been your life from the day you learned to know what God's grace really is.

so as to set you consecrated and unblemished and irreproachable in his presence ??23 that is, if you adhere to the foundations and stability of the faith, instead of moving away from the hope you have learned in the gospel, that gospel which has been preached to every creature under heaven, and of which I Paul was made a minister.

for I am a minister of the church by the divine commission which has been granted me in your interests, to make a full presentation of God's message ??26 of that open secret which, though concealed from ages and generations of old, has now been disclosed to the saints of God.

It is His will that they should understand the glorious wealth which this secret holds for the Gentiles, in the fact of Christ's presence among you as your hope of glory.

I labour for that end, striving for it with the divine energy which is a power within me.

Beware of anyone getting hold of you by means of a theosophy which is specious make-believe, on the lines of human tradition, corresponding to the Elemental spirits of the world and not to Christ.

So put to death those members that are on earth: sexual vice, impurity, appetite, evil desire, and lust (which is idolatry),

and put on the new nature which is renewed in the likeness of its Creator for the knowledge of him.

remember, you will receive from the Lord the inheritance which is your due; serve Christ your Lord and Master,

and pray for me as well, that God may give me an opening for the word, to speak of the open secret of Christ for which I am in custody.

Salute the brothers at Laodicea, also Nympha and the church which meets at her house.

Thus you became a pattern to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia;

for the word of the Lord has resounded from you not only through Macedonia and Achaia ??no, your faith in God has reached every place. We never need to speak about it.

So much so, that throughout the churches of God we are proud of you, proud of the stedfastness and faith you display through all the persecutions and the troubles in which you are involved.

Well then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the rules which you have learned from us orally or by letter.

and studying myths and interminable genealogies; such studies bear upon speculations rather than on the divine order which belongs to faith.

doctors of the Law is what they want to be, but they have no idea either of the meaning of the words they use or of the themes on which they harp.

as laid down by that glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.

through plausible sophists who are seared in conscience ??3 men who prohibit marriage and insist on abstinence from foods which God created for believing men, who understand the Truth, to partake of with thanksgiving.

Watch yourself and watch your teaching; stick to your work; if you do that, you will save your hearers as well as yourself.

is a conceited, ignorant creature, with a morbid passion for controversy and argument which only leads to envy, dissension, insults, insinuations,

fight in the good fight of the faith, secure that life eternal to which you were called when you voiced the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

to keep your commission free from stain, free from reproach, till the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ ??15 which will be brought about in due time by that blessed and only Sovereign, King of kings and Lord of lords,

amassing right good treasure for themselves in the world to come, in order to secure the life which is life indeed.