Another saying of His was this: "The Kingdom of God is as if a man scattered seed over the ground:

The meaning of the parable is as follows. The seed is God's Message.

Thereupon they cried out with one voice, "You, then, are the Son of God?" "It is as you say," He answered; "I am He."

Then Pilate asked Him, "You, then, are the King of the Jews?" "It is as you say," He replied.

But it is as I have said to you: you have seen me and yet you do not believe.

beginning from His baptism by John down to the day on which He was taken up again from us into Heaven--one should be appointed to become a witness with us as to His resurrection."

Peter, seeing this, spoke to the people. "Israelites," he said, "why do you wonder at this man? Or why gaze at us, as though by any power or piety of our own we had enabled him to walk?

For we maintain that it is as the result of faith that a man is held to be righteous, apart from actions done in obedience to Law.

so that the promise should be made sure to all Abraham's true descendants; not merely to those who are righteous through the Law, but to those who are righteous through a faith like that of Abraham. Thus in the sight of God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and makes reference to things that do not exist, as though they did, Abraham is the forefather of all of us. As it is written, "I have appointed you to be the forefather of many nations."

Your fidelity to the truth is everywhere known. I rejoice over you, therefore, but I wish you to be wise as to what is good, and simple-minded as to what is evil.

just as some few of you have recognized us as your reason for boasting, even as you will be ours, on the day of Jesus our Lord.

But He who is making us as well as you stedfast through union with the Anointed One, and has anointed us, is God,

We, however, will not exceed due limits in our boasting, but will keep within the limits of the sphere which God has assigned to us as a limit, which reaches even to you.

Wise as you yourselves are, you find pleasure in tolerating fools.

You are imagining, all this time, that we are making our defense at your bar. In reality it is as in God's presence and in communion with Christ that we speak; but, dear friends, it is all with a view to your progress in goodness.

even as, in His love, He chose us as His own in Christ before the creation of the world, that we might be holy and without blemish in His presence.

But now that Timothy has recently come back to us from you, and has brought us the happy tidings of your faith and love, and has told us how you still cherish a constant and affectionate recollection of us, and are longing to see us as we also long to see you--

For Good News has been brought to us as truly as to them; but the message they heard failed to benefit them, because they were not one in faith with those who gave heed to it.

And this is still more abundantly clear when we read that it is as belonging to the order of Melchizedek that a priest of a different kind is to arise,

So also Sodom and Gomorrah--and the neighboring towns in the same manner--having been guilty of gross fornication and having gone astray in pursuit of unnatural vice, are now before us as a specimen of the fire of the Ages in the punishment which they are undergoing.