Thematic Bible




Thematic Bible






Then Paul got up, and motioning with his hand, said, "Men of Israel, and you who reverence God, listen! The God of this people of Israel chose our forefathers, and made the people great during their stay in Egypt, and then with uplifted hand led them out of Egypt. Then after he had taken care of them for forty years in the desert, read more.
he destroyed seven nations in Canaan, and settled them upon their land for about four hundred and fifty years. After that he gave them judges, down to the time of the prophet Samuel. Then they demanded a king and for forty years God gave them Saul, the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin. Then he removed him and raised David up to be their king, bearing this testimony to him: 'I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my own heart, who will do all that I desire.' It is from his descendants that God has brought to Israel as he promised to do, a savior in Jesus, in preparation for whose coming John had preached to all the people of Israel baptism in token of repentance. Toward the end of his career, John said, 'What do you suppose that I am? I am not he! No! Someone is coming after me, the shoes on whose feet I am not fit to untie!' Brothers! Descendants of the house of Abraham, and those others among you who reverence God! It is to us that this message of salvation has been sent. For the people of Jerusalem and their leaders refused to recognize him, and condemned him, thus fulfilling the very utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, and though they could find no ground for putting him to death, they demanded of Pilate that he be executed. When they had carried out everything that had been said about him in the Scriptures, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he appeared to those who had come up to Jerusalem with him from Galilee, and they are now witnesses for him to the people. So we now bring you the good news that God has fulfilled to us, their children, the promise that he made to our forefathers, by raising Jesus to life, just as the Scripture says in the second psalm, You are my Son! Today I have become your Father!' Now as evidence that he has raised him from the dead, never again to return to decay, he said this: 'I will fulfil to you my sacred promises to David.' For in another psalm he says, 'You will not let your Holy One undergo decay.' Now David, after serving God's purposes in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid among his forefathers and did undergo decay, but he whom God raised to life did not undergo it. You must understand therefore, my brothers, that through him the forgiveness of your sins is announced to you, and that through union with him everyone who believes is cleared of every charge of which the Law of Moses could not clear you. Take care, therefore, that what is said in the prophets does not prove true of you: " 'Look, you scoffers! Then wonder and begone! For I am doing something in your times Which you will never believe even when it is related to you!' " As they were going out, the people begged to have all this said to them again on the following Sabbath, and after the congregation had broken up, many of the Jews and the devout converts to Judaism went away with Paul and Barnabas, and they talked with them, and urged them to rely on the favor of God.

For no matter how many guides you may have in the Christian life, you will not have many fathers; for in this matter of union with Christ, I became your father, through preaching the good news to you.

If I am not an apostle to other people, I certainly am one to you, for you yourselves, in your relation to the Lord, are the certificate of my apostleship.

But whether it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

You are my recommendations, written on my heart, for everybody to read and understand. You show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by me, written not in ink, but in the Spirit of the living God, and not on tablets of stone, but on the human heart.




Paul, an apostle not from men nor sent by any man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead??2 and all the brothers who are here with me, to the churches of Galatia;

And when God, who had set me apart from my birth and had called me in his mercy, saw fit to reveal his Son to me, so that I might preach the good news about him to the heathen, immediately, instead of consulting with any human being,



Paul, by God's will an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Timothy,


Paul, by God's will an apostle of Christ Jesus in fulfilment of the promise of that life which is found in union with Christ Jesus,


Paul, a slave of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to arouse faith in those whom God has chosen, and the comprehension of religious truth,

For I am the least important of the apostles, and am not fit to be called an apostle, because I once persecuted God's church.

and revealed at the proper time in his message, through the preaching with which I have been intrusted at the command of God our Savior,


and he said, 'The God of our forefathers has appointed you to learn his will and to see his Righteous One and hear him speak, for you shall be his witness before all men of what you have seen and heard. And now, why do you delay? Get up and be baptized, and wash out your sins, calling on his name.' read more.
After I had returned to Jerusalem, one day when I was praying in the Temple, I fell into a trance, and saw him saying to me, 'Make haste and leave Jerusalem at once, for they will not accept your evidence about me.' And I said, 'Lord, they know that I used to go through one synagogue after another, and to imprison and flog those who believed in you, and when the blood of your witness Stephen was being shed, I stood by and approved it, and took charge of the clothes of the men who killed him.' But he said to me, 'Go! I will send you far away to the heathen.' "

But get up and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for the express purpose of appointing you to serve me and to testify to what you have seen and to the visions you will have of me. I will save you from your people and from the heathen, to whom I will send you to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from Satan's control to God, so that they may have their sins forgiven and have a place among those who are consecrated through faith in me.'

Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the product of my work in the Lord's service? If I am not an apostle to other people, I certainly am one to you, for you yourselves, in your relation to the Lord, are the certificate of my apostleship.


If I am not an apostle to other people, I certainly am one to you, for you yourselves, in your relation to the Lord, are the certificate of my apostleship.