Thematic Bible


Thematic Bible



Take care that none of you ever pays back wrong for wrong, but always follow the kindest course with one another and with every one. Always be joyful; Never cease to pray; read more.
Under all circumstances give thanks to God. For this is his will for you as made known in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit; Do not make light of preaching. Bring everything to the test; cling to what is good; Shun every form of evil. May God himself, the giver of peace, make you altogether holy; and may your spirits, souls, and bodies be kept altogether faultless until the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you will not fail you; he will complete his work. Brothers, pray for us. Greet all the Brothers with a sacred kiss. I adjure you in the Lord's name to have this letter read to all the Brethren. May the blessing of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Take care that none of you ever pays back wrong for wrong, but always follow the kindest course with one another and with every one. Always be joyful; Never cease to pray; read more.
Under all circumstances give thanks to God. For this is his will for you as made known in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit; Do not make light of preaching. Bring everything to the test; cling to what is good; Shun every form of evil. May God himself, the giver of peace, make you altogether holy; and may your spirits, souls, and bodies be kept altogether faultless until the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you will not fail you; he will complete his work. Brothers, pray for us. Greet all the Brothers with a sacred kiss. I adjure you in the Lord's name to have this letter read to all the Brethren. May the blessing of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.


Then Peter began. "I see, beyond all doubt," he said, "that 'God does not show partiality,' But that in every nation he who reverences him and does what is right is acceptable to him.


But do you, dear friends, build up your characters on the foundation of your most holy Faith, pray under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and keep within the love of God, while waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, to bring you to Immortal Life.

Yes, and for this very reason do your best to supplement your faith by goodness, goodness by knowledge, knowledge by self-control, self-control by endurance, endurance by piety, piety by brotherly affection, and brotherly affection by love. read more.
For, when these virtues are yours, in increasing measure, they prevent your being indifferent to, or destitute of, a fuller knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Surely the man who has not these virtues is shortsighted even to blindness, and has chosen to forget that he has been purified from his sins of the past!

"Teacher, what is the great commandment in the Law?" His answer was: "'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.' This is the great first commandment. read more.
The second, which is like it, is this--'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thou dost thyself.' On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."

There is, therefore, now no condemnation for those who are in union with Christ Jesus; For through your union with Christ Jesus, the Law of the life- giving Spirit has set you free from the Law of Sin and Death. What Law could not do, in so far as our earthly nature weakened its action, God did, by sending his own Son, with a nature resembling our sinful nature, to atone for sin. He condemned sin in that earthly nature, read more.
So that the requirements of the Law might be satisfied in us who live now in obedience, not to our earthly nature, but to the Spirit. They who follow their earthly nature are earthly-minded, while they who follow the Spirit are spiritually minded. To be earthly-minded means Death, to be spiritually minded means Life and Peace; Because to be earthly-minded is to be an enemy to God, for such a mind does not submit to the Law of God, nor indeed can it do so. They who are earthly cannot please God. You, however, are not earthly but spiritual, since the Spirit of God lives within you. Unless a man has the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ; But, if Christ is within you, then, though the body is dead as a consequence of sin, the spirit is Life as a consequence of righteousness. And, if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead lives within you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give Life even to your mortal bodies, through his Spirit living within you. So then, Brothers, we owe nothing to our earthly nature, that we should live in obedience to it. If you live in obedience to your earthly nature, you will inevitably die; but if, by the power of the Spirit, you put an end to the evil habits of the body, you will live. All who are guided by the Spirit of God are Sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of a slave, to fill you once more with fear, but the spirit of a son which leads us to cry 'Abba, Our Father.' The Spirit himself unites with our spirits in bearing witness to our being God's children, And if children, then heirs-heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ, since we share Christ's sufferings in order that we may also share his Glory. I do not count the sufferings of our present life worthy of mention when compared with the Glory that is to be revealed and bestowed upon us.

Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for my People is for their Salvation. I can testify that they are zealous for the honor of God; but they are not guided by true insight, For, in their ignorance of the Divine Righteousness, and in their eagerness to set up a righteousness of their own, they refused to accept with submission the Divine Righteousness. read more.
For Christ has brought Law to an end, so that righteousness may be obtained by every one who believes in him. For Moses writes that, as for the righteousness which results from Law, 'those who practice it will find Life through it.' But the righteousness which results from faith finds expression in these words--'Do not say to yourself "Who will go up into heaven?"'--which means to bring Christ down--' Or "Who will go down into the depths below?"'--which means to bring Christ up from the dead. No, but what does it say? 'The Message of Faith' which we proclaim. For, if with your lips you acknowledge the truth of the Message that JESUS IS LORD, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with their hearts men believe and so attain to righteousness, while with their lips they make their Profession of Faith and so find Salvation. As the passage of Scripture says--'No one who believes in him shall have any cause for shame.' For no distinction is made between the Jew and the Greek, for all have the same Lord, and he is bountiful to all who invoke him. For 'every one who invokes the Name of the Lord shall be saved.'

But the fruit produced by the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindliness, generosity, trustfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law! And those who belong to Jesus, the Christ, have already crucified their earthly nature, with its passions and its cravings. read more.
Since our Life is due to the Spirit, let us rule our conduct also by the Spirit.

Take care that none of you ever pays back wrong for wrong, but always follow the kindest course with one another and with every one. Always be joyful; Never cease to pray; read more.
Under all circumstances give thanks to God. For this is his will for you as made known in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit; Do not make light of preaching. Bring everything to the test; cling to what is good; Shun every form of evil. May God himself, the giver of peace, make you altogether holy; and may your spirits, souls, and bodies be kept altogether faultless until the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Yet, if you keep the royal law which runs--'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thou dost thyself,' you are doing right; But, if you worship rank, you commit a sin, and stand convicted by that same law of being offenders against it. For a man who has laid the Law, as a whole, to heart, but has failed in one particular, is liable for breaking all its provisions. read more.
He who said 'Thou shalt not commit adultery' also said 'Thou shalt not murder.' If, then, you commit murder but not adultery, you are still an offender against the Law. Therefore, speak and act as men who are to be judged by the 'Law of Freedom.' For there will be justice without mercy for him who has not acted mercifully. Mercy triumphs over Justice. My Brothers, what is the good of a man's saying that he has faith, if he does not prove it by actions? Can such faith save him? Suppose some Brother or Sister should be in want of clothes and of daily bread, And one of you were to say to them--"Go, and peace be with you; find warmth and food for yourselves," and yet you were not to give them the necessaries of life, what good would it be to them? In just the same way faith, if not followed by actions, is, by itself, a lifeless thing. Some one, indeed, may say--"You are a man of faith, and I am a man of action." "Then show me your faith," I reply, "apart from any actions, and I will show you my faith by my actions." It is a part of your Faith, is it not, that there is one God? Good; yet even the demons have that faith, and tremble at the thought. Now do you really want to understand, you foolish man, how it is that faith without actions leads to nothing? Look at our ancestor, Abraham. Was not it the result of his actions that he was pronounced righteous after he had offered his son, Isaac, on the altar? You see how, in his case, faith and actions went together; that his faith was perfected as the result of his actions; And that in this way the words of Scripture came true-- "Abraham believed God, and that was regarded by God as righteousness," and "He was called the friend of God." You see, then, that it is as the result of his actions that a man is pronounced righteous, and not of his faith only. Was not it the same with the prostitute, Rahab? Was not it as the result of her actions that she was pronounced righteous, after she had welcomed the messengers and hastened them away by a different road? Exactly as a body is dead without a spirit, so faith is dead without actions.


"I am the Life-giving Bread," Jesus said to them; "he that comes to me shall never be hungry, and he that believes in me shall never thirst again. But, as I have said already, you have seen me, and yet you do not believe in me. All those whom the Father gives me will come to me; and no one who comes to me will I ever turn away. read more.
For I have come down from Heaven, to do, not my own will, but the will of him who sent me; And his will is this--that I should not lose one of all those whom he has given me, but should raise them up at the Last Day. For it is the will of my Father that every one who sees the Son, and believes in him, should have Immortal Life; and I myself will raise him up at the Last Day."

Submit to all human institutions for the Lord's sake, alike to the emperor as the supreme authority, and to governors as the men sent by him to punish evil-doers and to commend those who do right. For God's will is this--that you should silence the ignorance of foolish people by doing what is right.

For you have not forgotten the directions that we gave you on the authority of our Lord Jesus. For this is God's purpose--that you should be pure; abstaining from all immorality; Each of you recognizing the duty of taking one woman for his wife, purely and honorably, read more.
And not for the mere gratification of his passions, like the Gentiles who know nothing of God; None of you over-reaching or taking advantage of his Brother in such matters. 'The Lord takes vengeance' upon all who do such things, as we have already warned you and solemnly declared. For God's Call to us does not permit of an impure life, but demands purity.

We entreat you also, Brothers--warn the disorderly, comfort the faint-hearted, give a helping hand to the weak, and be patient with every one. Take care that none of you ever pays back wrong for wrong, but always follow the kindest course with one another and with every one. Always be joyful; read more.
Never cease to pray; Under all circumstances give thanks to God. For this is his will for you as made known in Christ Jesus.