Thematic Bible


Thematic Bible






And may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father who has loved us and given us eternal encouragement and good hope, graciously encourage your hearts and strengthen them for all good in deed and word.

















And it is my prayer that your love may be more and more rich in knowledge and all manner of insight, enabling you to have a sense of what is vital, so that you may be transparent and no harm to anyone in view of the day of Christ, your life covered with that harvest of righteousness which Jesus Christ produces to the glory and the praise of God.

Not that I have already attained this or am already perfect, but I press forward to appropriate it, because I have been appropriated myself by Christ Jesus. Brothers, I for one do not consider myself to have appropriated this; my one thought is, by forgetting what lies behind me and straining to what lies before me, to press on to the goal for the prize of God's high call in Christ Jesus. read more.
For all those of our number who are mature, this must be the point of view; God will reveal that to any of you who look at things differently.

so that you may lead a life that is worthy of the Lord and give him entire satisfaction. May you be fruitful and increase in the doing of all good, as you thus know God! May his glorious might nerve you with full power to endure and to be patient cheerfully, whatever comes,

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And may the Lord make you increase and excel in love to one another and to all men (as is my love for you), so as to strengthen your hearts and make them blameless in holiness before our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones. [Amen.]

Let us pass on then to what is mature, leaving elementary Christian doctrine behind, instead of laying the foundation over again with repentance from dead works, with faith in God, with instruction about ablutions and the laying on of hands, about the resurrection of the dead and eternal punishment. With God's permission, we will take this step.

So off with all malice, all guile and insincerity and envy and slander of every kind! Like newly-born children, thirst for the pure, spiritual milk to make you grow up to salvation. You have had a taste of the kindness of the Lord:


(for all of you who had yourselves baptized into Christ have taken on the character of Christ). There is no room for Jew or Greek, there is no room for slave or freeman, there is no room for male and female; you are all one in Christ Jesus. Now if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring; in virtue of the Promise, you are heirs.

it is this Spirit testifying along with our own spirit that we are children of God; and if children, heirs as well, heirs of God, heirs along with Christ ??for we share his sufferings in order to share his glory.

So with us. When we were under age, we lived under the thraldom of the Elemental spirits of the world; but when the time had fully expired, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, to ransom those who were under the Law, that we might get our sonship. read more.
It is because you are sons that God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts crying 'Abba! Father!' So you are servant no longer but son, and as son you are also heir, all owing to God.

so to order it in the fulness of the ages that all things in heaven and earth alike should be gathered up in Christ ??11 in the Christ in whom we have had our heritage allotted us (as was decreed in the design of him who carries out everything according to the counsel of his will),

Hence, from the day we heard of it, we have never ceased to pray for you, asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and insight, so that you may lead a life that is worthy of the Lord and give him entire satisfaction. May you be fruitful and increase in the doing of all good, as you thus know God! May his glorious might nerve you with full power to endure and to be patient cheerfully, whatever comes, read more.
thanking the Father who has qualified us to share the lot of the saints in the Light,

For we ourselves were once senseless, disobedient, astray, enslaved to all manner of passions and pleasures; we spent our days in malice and envy, we were hateful, and we hated one another. But "the goodness and affection of God our Saviour appeared; and he saved us, not for anything we had done but from his own pity for us, by the water that means regeneration and renewal under the holy Spirit read more.
which he poured upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs to the hope of life eternal."






It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons; for where is the son who is not disciplined by his father? Discipline is the portion of all; if you get no discipline, then you are not sons but bastards. Why, we had fathers of our flesh to discipline us, and we yielded to them! Shall we not far more submit to the Father of our spirits, and so live? read more.
For while their discipline was only for a time, and inflicted at their pleasure, he disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his own holiness.

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, how the divine secret was disclosed to me by a revelation (if you read what I have already written briefly about this, you can understand my insight into that secret of Christ read more.
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), namely, that in Christ Jesus the Gentiles are co-heirs, companions, and co-partners in the Promise.

Then, I ask, has God repudiated his People? Never! Why, I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin! God has not repudiated his People, his predestined People! Surely you know what scripture says in the passage called 'Elijah'? You know how he pleads with God against Israel: Lord, they have killed thy prophets, they have demolished thine altars; I alone am left, and they seek my life. read more.
Yet what is the divine answer? I have left myself seven thousand men who have not knelt to Baal. Well, at the present day there is also a remnant, selected by grace. Selected by grace, and therefore not for anything they have done; otherwise grace would cease to be grace. Now what are we to infer from this? That Israel has failed to secure the object of its quest; the elect have secured it, and the rest have been rendered insensible to it ??8 as it is written, God has given them a spirit of torpor, eyes that see not, ears that hear not ??down to this very day. And David says, Let their table prove a snare and a trap, a pitfall and a retribution for them; let their eyes be darkened, that they cannot see, bow down their backs for ever. Now I ask, have they stumbled to their ruin? Never! The truth is, that by their lapse salvation has passed to the Gentiles, so as to make them jealous. Well, if their lapse has enriched the world, if their defection is the gain of the Gentiles, what will it mean when they all come in? I tell you this, you Gentiles, that as an apostle to the Gentiles I lay great stress on my office, in the hope of being able to make my fellow-Jews jealous and of managing thus to save some of them. For if their exclusion means that the world is reconciled to God, what will their admission mean? Why, it will be life from the dead! If the first handful of dough is consecrated, so is the rest of the lump; if the root is consecrated, so are the branches. Supposing some of the branches have been broken off, while you have been grafted in like a shoot of wild olive to share the rich growth of the olive-stem,

Shun idolatry, then, my beloved. I am speaking to sensible people; weigh my words for yourselves. 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? read more.
(for many as we are, we are one Bread, one Body, since we all partake of the one Bread). Look at the rites of Israel. Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar?

Hence, from the day we heard of it, we have never ceased to pray for you, asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and insight, so that you may lead a life that is worthy of the Lord and give him entire satisfaction. May you be fruitful and increase in the doing of all good, as you thus know God! May his glorious might nerve you with full power to endure and to be patient cheerfully, whatever comes, read more.
thanking the Father who has qualified us to share the lot of the saints in the Light, rescuing us from the power of the Darkness and transferring us to the realm of his beloved Son! In him we enjoy our redemption, that is, the forgiveness of sins.

Let all servants who are under the yoke of slavery remember that their masters are entitled to perfect respect ??otherwise it will be a scandal to the Name of God and to our doctrine. Those who have Christian believers as their masters must not take liberties with them because they are brothers; they must be all the better servants because those who get the good of their service are believers and beloved. This is what you are to teach and preach.

Beloved, do not be surprised at the ordeal that has come to test you, as though some foreign experience befell you. You are sharing what Christ suffered; so rejoice in it, that you may also rejoice and exult when his glory is revealed. If you are denounced for the sake of Christ, you are blessed; for then the Spirit of glory and power, the Spirit of God himself, is resting on you.

Symeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have been allotted a faith of equal privilege with ours, by the equity of our God and saviour Jesus Christ: grace and peace be multiplied to you by the knowledge of our Lord. Inasmuch as his power divine has bestowed on us every requisite for life and piety by the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence ??4 bestowing on us thereby promises precious and supreme, that by means of them you may escape the corruption produced within the world by lust, and participate in the divine nature ??5 for this very reason, do you contrive to make it your whole concern to furnish your faith with resolution, resolution with intelligence,
















Hence, from the day we heard of it, we have never ceased to pray for you, asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and insight, so that you may lead a life that is worthy of the Lord and give him entire satisfaction. May you be fruitful and increase in the doing of all good, as you thus know God! May his glorious might nerve you with full power to endure and to be patient cheerfully, whatever comes, read more.
thanking the Father who has qualified us to share the lot of the saints in the Light,