Thematic Bible


Thematic Bible









Any one who professes to be in the light and yet hates his brother man is still in darkness. He who loves his brother man continues in the light, and his life puts no stumbling-block in the way of others. But he who hates his brother man is in darkness and is walking in darkness; and he does not know where he is going--because the darkness has blinded his eyes.












But there were also false prophets among the people, as there will be teachers of falsehood among you also, who will cunningly introduce fatal divisions, disowning even the Sovereign Lord who has redeemed them, and bringing on themselves swift destruction. And in their immoral ways they will have many eager disciples, through whom religion will be brought into disrepute. Thirsting for riches, they will trade on you with their canting talk. From of old their judgement has been working itself out, and their destruction has not been slumbering. read more.
For God did not spare angels when they had sinned, but hurling them down to Tartarus consigned them to caves of darkness, keeping them in readiness for judgement. And He did not spare the ancient world, although He preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a deluge on the world of the ungodly. He reduced to ashes the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and condemned them to overthrow, making them an example to people who might in future be living godless lives. But when righteous Lot was sore distressed by the gross misconduct of immoral men He rescued him. (For their lawless deeds were torture, day after day, to the pure soul of that righteous man--all that he saw and heard whilst living in their midst.) Since all this is so, the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from temptation, and on the other hand how to keep the unrighteous under punishment in readiness for the Day of Judgement, and especially those who are abandoned to sensuality--craving, as they do, for polluted things, and scorning control. Fool-hardy and self-willed, they do not tremble when speaking evil of glorious beings; while angels, though greater than they in might and power, do not bring any insulting accusation against such in the presence of the Lord. But these men, like brute beasts, created (with their natural instincts) being doomed to receive a requital for their guilt. They reckon it pleasure to feast daintily in broad daylight. They are spots and blemishes, while feeding luxuriously at their love-feasts, and banqueting with you. Their very eyes are full of adultery--being eyes which never cease from sin. These men set traps to catch unstedfast souls, their own hearts being well trained in greed. They are fore-doomed to God's curse! Forsaking the straight road, they have gone astray, having eagerly followed in the steps of Balaam, the son of Beor, who was bent on securing the wages of unrighteousness. But he was rebuked for his transgression: a dumb ass spoke with a human voice and checked the madness of the Prophet. These people are wells without water, mists driven along by a storm, men for whom the dense darkness has been reserved. For, while they pour out their frivolous and arrogant talk, they use earthly cravings--every kind of immorality--as a bait to entrap men who are just escaping from the influence of those who live in error. And they promise them freedom, although they are themselves the slaves of what is corrupt. For a man is the slave of any one by whom he has been worsted in fight.












Yet when we are among mature believers we do speak words of wisdom; a wisdom not belonging, however, to the present age nor to the leaders of the present age who are soon to pass away. But in dealing with truths hitherto kept secret we speak of God's wisdom--that hidden wisdom which, before the world began, God pre-destined, so that it should result in glory to us; a wisdom which not one of the leaders of the present age possesses, for if they had possessed it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory. read more.
But--to use the words of Scripture--we speak of things which eye has not seen nor ear heard, and which have never entered the heart of man: all that God has in readiness for them that love Him. For us, however, God has drawn aside the veil through the teaching of the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, including the depths of the divine nature. For, among human beings, who knows a man's inner thoughts except the man's own spirit within him? In the same way, also, only God's Spirit is acquainted with God's inner thoughts. But we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which comes forth from God, that we may know the blessings that have been so freely given to us by God. Of these we speak--not in language which man's wisdom teaches us, but in that which the Spirit teaches--adapting, as we do, spiritual words to spiritual truths. The unspiritual man rejects the things of the Spirit of God, and cannot attain to the knowledge of them, because they are spiritually judged. But the spiritual man judges of everything, although he is himself judged by no one. For who has penetrated the mind of the Lord, and will instruct Him? But *we* have the mind of Christ.