Thematic Bible




Thematic Bible








On the contrary, O man, who are you who answers back to God? Will what is molded say to the one who molded [it], "Why did you make me like this"? Or does the potter not have authority over the clay, to make from the same lump a vessel that [is] for {honorable use} and [one] that [is] for {ordinary use}? And [what] if God, wanting to demonstrate his wrath and to make known his power, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? read more.
And [he did so] in order that he could make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy that he prepared beforehand for glory, us whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? As he also says in Hosea, "I will call those [who were] not my people, 'My people,' and those [who were] not loved, 'Loved.' And it will be in the place where it was said to them, 'You [are] not my people,' there they will be called 'sons of the living God.'"

For [as I] was passing through and observing carefully your objects of worship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed, 'To an unknown God.' Therefore what you worship without knowing [it], this I proclaim to you-- the God who made the world and all the things in it. This one, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands [as if he] needed anything, [because] he himself gives to everyone life and breath and everything. read more.
And he made from one [man] every nation of humanity to live on all the face of the earth, determining [their] fixed times and the fixed boundaries of their habitation, to search for God, if perhaps indeed they might feel around for him and find [him]. And indeed he is not far away from each one of us, for in him we live and move and exist, as even some of {your own} poets have said: 'For we also are {his} offspring.' Therefore, [because we] are offspring of God, we ought not to think the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human skill and thought.

For all those who are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery [leading] to fear again, but you have received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, "Abba! Father!" The Spirit himself confirms to our spirit that we are children of God, read more.
and if children, also heirs--heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer together [with him] so that we may also be glorified together [with him].

Do not become unevenly yoked with unbelievers, for what participation [is there between] righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship [does] light [have] with darkness? And what agreement [does] Christ [have] with Beliar? Or what share [does] a believer [have] with an unbeliever? And what agreement [does the] temple of God [have] with idols? For we are the temple of the living God, just as God said, "I will live in them and will walk about [among them], and I will be their God and they will be my people." read more.
Therefore "come out from their midst and be separate," says the Lord, "and do not touch what is unclean, and I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you will be sons and daughters to me," says the all-powerful Lord.

Do all [things] without grumbling and disputing, in order that you may become blameless and innocent, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you shine as stars in the world,

See what sort of love the Father has given to us: that we should be called children of God, and we are! Because of this the world does not know us: because it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that whenever he is revealed we will be like him, because we will see him just as he is.